İYİ Party presidential candidate Müsavat Dervişoğlu responds to Devlet Bahçeli on 'Convention': 'No one can dictate our direction'

Following criticism over the vote share received in the March 31 Local Elections, İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener announced that her party would hold an Extraordinary Convention and stated that she would not be a candidate.

Following Akşener's decision, four candidates emerged within the party, and İYİ Party Group Deputy Chairman Müsavat Dervişoğlu made evaluations regarding his candidacy.

"WE ARE A POLITICAL MOVEMENT THAT PRESENTS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE GOVERNMENT"

Highlights from Dervişoğlu’s statements are as follows:

“Courage is being able to go out into the squares and speak when everyone else is afraid and intimidated. Determination is resisting, fighting, and not bowing down to oppression and slander. Virtue is being a person of your word and being able to act according to principles rather than temporary interests. I would like to express my gratitude to our Chairwoman, Ms. Meral Akşener, who spoke with courage in a climate of fear and silence in politics, struggled against slander on the path she knew to be right, and founded the İYİ Party by fighting for the interests of her nation rather than the direction of the wind. We are the representatives of a political movement that founded the İYİ Party under Ms. Akşener's political leadership and presented an option to the Turkish nation that would be an alternative to the government, despite the one-man regime imposed at a time when the government was accustomed to being in power and the opposition was accustomed to remaining in opposition.

"THE İYİ PARTY WAS NOT FOUNDED BY RECEIVING PERMISSION FROM ACROSS THE OCEAN"

"It is not possible for us to hand over our party to wills outside of our party; it cannot be expected of us. The İYİ Party is not a party designed by rent-seeking and capital groups. The İYİ Party is also not a party founded by receiving permission from across the ocean, from continental Europe, or from Eurasia. It is the Turkish nation itself that constitutes this political movement. This party is not someone's backyard or playground, but the work of a great struggle selflessly waged by the brave children of the Turkish nation.

"WE ASPIRE TO GOVERN"

"Let everyone know well that we aspire to govern. Let those who have tried to assign a position and ideology to our party on television and social media since the day it was founded, and who judge our party in its absence every day, know well that the political position of the İYİ Party is extremely clear and precise. We are nationalist, democratic, developmentalist, reasonable, and inclusive. We envision a country that is libertarian and democratic, not one crushed under the arbitrary and oppressive decisions of a one-man regime. We desire a Turkey that is based on the rule of law, not one where justice is suspended and the law of the powerful prevails.

"TO THOSE WHO ASPIRE TO SET AN EXPIRATION DATE FOR OUR PARTY..."

"We reject all baseless statements claiming that our party will break away from the center and become radicalized by entering a certain ideological mold with the convention process. These are the fabrications of malicious circles attempting to marginalize the İYİ Party. The İYİ Party is essentially the center itself, as a political party committed to the fundamental principles of the national state founded by Atatürk, with its nationalist, democratic, and developmentalist tenets. The center represented by the İYİ Party is the reasonable mind of Turkey, embracing all patriots in our country. The İYİ Party is the common sense of Turkey. Our party will leave those who take every opportunity in the media to set an expiration date for our political movement disappointed, and will demonstrate to the end its determination to carry our nation, which is being tried to be divided by polarization policies, toward a new ideal of development.

"ONE-MAN REGIME"

"It is this freak one-man regime and its constitutional framework, the Presidential Government System, that has dragged Turkey into the economic collapse, bureaucratic, and demographic crisis it has been in for many years. As the İYİ Party, we say that the Republic of Turkey can never be left to the mind and whims of one person.

CRITICISM OF AKP'S 'CENTURY OF TURKEY'

"Instead of giving the children of our nation a quality education and a bright future, AKP governments are busy organizing ignorance. Instead of producing prosperity and wealth and sharing it fairly, AKP governments are busy managing poverty. In a country where an average of 20 million of our citizens can only survive on social assistance, 16 million of our citizens cannot even pay their electricity bills without support, and 8 million people can only heat their homes with coal aid, with what face do you, as the government, talk about which 'Century of Turkey'?

"WE ARE AGAINST BANS"

"There is only one thing to say to the government under these conditions: I wish you had remained in the last century. We stand for advanced democracy, the rule of law, meritocracy, nature and the environment, and Turkey. Therefore, we are against the one-man regime, all kinds of anti-democratic practices, and bans. We are against the AK Party's management style that encompasses all of these.

LOCAL ELECTION EVALUATION

"The March 31, 2024 election results, and the fact that the AKP became the second party after 22 years and the CHP became the first party after 47 years within the framework of these results, are part of the sociological and political consequences of the wave of change in Turkey and the world. If I become the İYİ Party chairman with the favor of our high board delegates at the April 27 convention, we will judge the political conditions our party is in with the new staff we will form, and we will start working from the first day by determining the most accurate strategy for the interests of the Turkish nation first, and then our party.

"NO ONE CAN DICTATE THE DIRECTION OF THE İYİ PARTY"

"The decision for an extraordinary convention rests solely with the İYİ Party and only binds the corporate identity of the İYİ Party. Attempts by other political parties to interfere in the İYİ Party's extraordinary convention are not only inconsistent with political ethics and courtesy but are also unacceptable to the brave members of the İYİ Party. No one can dictate the direction of the İYİ Party. Let those who tie their political future to the power coming from political centers outside our party know well that under this roof, there is no will above the will of the İYİ Party itself.

WHAT HAPPENED?

MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli visited the memorial tomb of MHP Founding Chairman Alparslan Türkeş in Beştepe after the Eid prayer and made the following statements in his speech there:

"I am thinking that Ms. Meral Akşener should abandon the decision to separate and continue at the head of the party, and that the friends who are project owners, who decide to give strength to the party and think about being a candidate with her, should unite around her and become a party that makes efforts on Turkey's issues, from constitutional changes to all kinds of topics."

News Source: 12punto