He had become a candidate for the convention! Tolga Akalın: 'İYİ Party is bigger than Meral Akşener'

In the İYİ Party, which suffered a significant loss of votes in the March 31 local elections, Chairwoman Meral Akşener first decided to hold an Extraordinary Elective Congress and then announced that she would not be a candidate.

Tolga Akalın, the İYİ Party Deputy Chairman responsible for Migration Policies, had announced that he was a candidate for the chairmanship for the Congress on April 27. Akalın, who participated in the Gündem Özel program on Halk TV, answered questions from Barış Terkoğlu and Kürşad Oğuz.

While Akalın used striking sentences about what happened at the congress in 2016 where the split within the MHP took place, he also responded to MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli.

RESPONSE TO BAHÇELİ

Speaking about Bahçeli's call for Akşener to remain at the head of her party and to be a candidate, Akalın said, "We do not need advice or suggestions at this level," and used the following words:

"This approach is the fundamental approach of conventional political understanding, but the new era is an era in which these conventional politicians will also change.

I see this as an attempt to violate the right of the İYİ Party movement to realize its own destiny.

We do not need advice or suggestions at this level. Because we are a movement that had to establish a party because we emptied the center in Turkish politics and replaced ourselves in the center, opened a new democratic nationalist era, and did this with one of the most magnificent political struggles seen in political history within the MHP, and because the rights we obtained in that struggle were taken away from us, and our rights within the MHP were taken away as a result of Erdoğan's struggle through the judiciary."

"THE MAIN BACKBONE WAS REMOVED"

Stating that the main backbone of the movement was removed from the party administration, Akalın noted that not only those from the nationalist tradition but also names from the social democratic tradition were excluded from the administration.

"İYİ PARTY IS BIGGER THAN AKŞENER"

Responding to claims that the İYİ Party would collapse if Meral Akşener left the chairmanship, Akalın said, "There is a group that says, 'Sir, if you leave, the party will disappear.' Some of them are very sincere, and for some, the hidden subject is 'if you leave, we will disappear.'

Meral Akşener, whom we know and who is the leader of our political movement, is not a person who ever goes back on her word. The İYİ Party is bigger than Akşener."

"WE WILL NOT LOSE ANOTHER PARTY TO ERDOĞAN"

Reminding of the 2016 MHP congress, Akalın repeated his words, “We will not lose a party to Erdoğan again.”

News Source: 12punto