Striking 'Erdoğan' remarks from İYİ Party leadership candidate Mehmet Tolga Akalın ahead of the convention

The İYİ Party, which decided to enter the local elections 'free and independent', did not achieve the results it expected on the evening of March 31.

The İYİ Party, which could only receive 3.77 percent of the votes, fell to the position of the sixth party across Turkey.

Following calls for resignation, İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener decided to hold a convention and announced that she would not be a candidate.

All eyes in the İYİ Party have turned to the convention to be held on April 27.

Tolga Akalın, the İYİ Party Deputy Chair responsible for Migration and Refugee Policies, who announced his candidacy for the chairmanship, made statements to Saygı Öztürk from Sözcü.

Stating that the İYİ Party was founded by 1,200 Turkish nationalists on a nationalist, democratic, and developmentalist axis, Akalın said the following regarding the party's establishment phase;

"WE MADE MISTAKES LATER"

“When we were founding the party, we held meetings in 8 regions. In response to our question about what kind of a party it should be, 95 percent said a 'center party'. Together with 1,200 friends, we founded our party on a nationalist, democratic, and developmentalist axis. We made mistakes later. We sought centralization through actors. However, centralization should primarily be a fundamental idea. The political center in Turkey is variable. In some periods it becomes more conservative, in some periods it becomes more democratic, and in some periods it becomes more nationalist. The sociology in Turkey right now is roughly the same as it was when the İYİ Party was founded. According to a 2023 study, 30.2 percent of voters in Turkey define themselves with primary identities as Turkish nationalists, and 29.5 percent as Atatürkists. Now there is a massive 60 percent center. Now, in order to fortify this center, we needed to form our main center with the cadres that the main wave wants to see represented, by forming its traditional cadres and its steel core. When the people who formed the main backbone were removed from the center very quickly in our party, and when people who were new to politics formed the center instead, for example, when you bring in Bahadır Erdem or Salim Ensarioğlu, you are questioned. Our base sees our centralization adventure as alienation.

"OUR BASE PARTIALLY LEFT AND WARNED US BY VOTING FOR CHP"

Our party needs a serious recovery process in the first 6-month stage. Our traditional base has partially left and warned us by voting for the CHP. Right now, they have crossed to the other side of the road and are watching us from there. They will see what we do and will return accordingly. First of all, we have many urgent measures to take in the first 6 months to ensure the traditional base of the party regains its faith in the party. In the following 1-year to 2-year period, we will start a centralization by revealing that main core in order to build the democratic center. At the end of 1.5 years, if God wills, we will set out on a march to power and prepare for the 2028 election. We will invite the friends that the public and our base want the most, either from within or outside the party, and by conducting a massive presidential campaign process, we desire to open a period where Turkish nationalists on the new axis, the owners of the idea that founded the Turkish state and the Republic, will govern Turkey again."

"WE WILL NOT LET OUR PARTY BE CAPTURED BY ERDOĞAN FOR A SECOND TIME"

Stating that he thinks the İYİ Party convention will take place in the form of a 'Gentlemen's Congress', Akalın said, "We will not let our party be captured by Tayyip Erdoğan for a second time."

"This is not a sentence spoken lightly. It is a sentence I say very comfortably, knowing what I am saying and standing behind it," said Akalın, and continued his words as follows;

"For Tayyip Erdoğan, rather than a 3 percent İYİ Party, the 38 deputies of the İYİ Party are whetting his appetite, to put it in quotes, for the new Constitution period. That is why I see an effort to intervene. The rise of the İYİ Party in the central area in any case both pulls the AKP down and pushes it from the center. This is a risk. We will put the İYİ Party back on its founding settings, its direction, and its path to power."

News Source: 12punto