İP overrun with disgruntled members after parliamentary candidates announced

The nascent Good Party (İP) has shown that it is not immune to intraparty restlessness after its failure to nominate two senior party members created bad publicity yesterday. One of the five İP members in Parliament, Yusuf Halaçoğlu, is also one of the few former Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) members who quit along with Chairwoman Meral Akşener (L) to found the party October last year. While Akşener is running for president, the other founders had expected to be nominated for parliamentary seats they had a good chance of winning. A deputy from Kayseri in the current Parliament, Halaçoğlu yesterday complained about his party's failure to nominate him.

"I asked to be nominated for İzmir or Ankara because my wife was assigned to work in İzmir and we have two small children," he said, declining to be nominated for his home town of Kayseri.

However, his request was apparently rejected.

Yet, Halaçoğlu is not the only resentful figure. The founder of the party's youth branch, Osman Ertürk Özel, who became one of İP's most public faces in recent months, announced his withdrawal as his party's parliamentary nominee on his Twitter account. It appears he was unhappy to be nominated in the fifth place from İzmir, which will most certainly prevent him from winning a parliamentary seat.

"I am withdrawing from candidacy as I see it necessary," Özel wrote on his Twitter page, adding that nevertheless he will work for the success of the İP and its presidential candidate Akşener in the upcoming elections.

The İP, which mostly consists of former MHP dissidents, was founded in October 2017. Akşener was a prominent figure among MHP dissidents who heavily criticized the policies of the MHP's chairman of 20 years, Devlet Bahçeli, after the general elections on June 7 and Nov. 1, 2015. The intraparty clashes ended after the dissidents were dismissed from the party after a heated judicial process.

Also on Monday, debates in the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) commenced after party Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu excluded parliamentarians close to presidential candidate Muharrem İnce, who has repeatedly challenged Kılıçdaroğlu for party leadership.

CHP Trabzon Deputy Haluk Pekşen, who was among those not renominated, told the media Sunday that Kılıçdaroğlu had culled those who had objected Kılıçdaroğlu's attempts to recruit ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) former President Abdullah Gül as the joint presidential candidate of the opposition.İnce was reportedly disappointed with Kılıçdaroğlu's choices and suddenly decided Monday to suspend his two rallies in the Black Sea provinces of Bartın and Zonguldak by complaining of a sore throat. He later held the two rallies, tweeting, "My voice is now better." At the rally he said once he became president, he would prepare his own list of ministers in an evident dig at the party chairman who prepared the list of parliamentary candidates.