Will she run again? İYİ Party Chair Meral Akşener makes statement on party congress

The İYİ Party, which had decided to enter the local elections independently, did not achieve the results it expected, with its vote share falling below 3 percent across Turkey. Following the elections, Chair Meral Akşener became the focus of criticism, and she subsequently decided to hold an extraordinary elective congress.

Following the decision, Günay Kondaz and Mehmet Tolga Akalın announced their candidacies for the party chairmanship. There was curiosity about whether Akşener would run again. In her statement, Akşener announced that she would not be a candidate. Akşener's statement is as follows:

"Throughout my 30-year political career, I have had to make decisions and adopt stances on many issues that closely concern the future of our country, the peace of our nation, and the well-being of our state. While making these decisions and adopting these stances, I have always set aside my individual interests, short-term potential gains, and all kinds of 'attractive' offers, and placed the moral values I possess, the fundamental principles of our Republic, and the needs of Turkey at the center. Thank God, it has always been proven over time, if not always in the short term, how accurate every decision I made and every stance I adopted was.

Furthermore, in a way that we are not very accustomed to seeing in today's politics, no matter how difficult the conditions or how unfavorable the political conjuncture, I have always known how to take responsibility for every decision and every stance of mine. Indeed, I have paid the necessary prices every time without expecting anything from others. I have never regretted this.

As you know, before the March 31, 2024 Local Administration elections, as the İYİ Party, we chose to enter the elections independently in line with the decision of our authorized bodies. Our goal in making this decision was to take a principled step to remove our party from the orbit of political poles that are becoming increasingly established in Turkey, and to end the environment of polarization, the damages of which we have all experienced on a social, political, and institutional level, by offering our nation a new option that would save them from the non-competitive politics they are squeezed between.

While making this decision, as the chair of the party that made it, I of course knew who we were facing. I was certainly aware of the various difficulties we would face, the immoral propaganda, and the vulgar attacks that would be carried out by purchased wills. I was also, of course, aware that the risk of a potentially negative election result, and thus the necessity of paying a price again, could arise. For this reason, I emphasized at every opportunity throughout the process that the responsibility for the results belonged to me.

I, personally, am at peace with the price we and I have paid within the scope of the election results. At the point we have reached, if our name as the İYİ Party is not mentioned with dirty bargains that jeopardize tomorrow for the sake of winning today, I am at peace with this price. If the İYİ Party has been shaken today, but has resisted becoming the backyard of the government, the main opposition, or certain actors chasing 2028 calculations, I am at peace with this price. And even if the İYİ Party, at the expense of sacrificing today, has managed to adopt a stance that can show its usual upright posture against the various calamities that will come before Turkey in this course, I am at peace with this price. Because I, as I did yesterday, pay any price today for the good of my nation, my state, and my country.

In this context, I declare that I will not be a candidate for the Chairmanship at our extraordinary elective congress, where we will conduct our accounting regarding the elections and determine our route on the path to 2028.

I wish our congress to be auspicious for our party, our nation, and our country, and I wish success to all my friends who will be candidates."

News Source: 12punto