Türkiye's nationalist IYI Party leader Meral Akşener said on Friday the six-party opposition alliance of which her party was a member no longer reflected the national will, announcing her party's withdrawal from the grouping ahead of the May elections.
Akşener told a news conference that the IYI Party's proposed presidential candidates, the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, were not accepted by the other five parties and she called on the mayors to do their duty, in an apparent invitation for them to stand as candidates.
The other five parties in the alliance had agreed on Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), as their joint candidate to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the May 14 elections.
