Turkey: IYI Party loses 3 founding members

ANKARA

Three founding members of Turkey’s opposition Good (IYI) Party on Monday quit the party’s executive board and the party itself.

Yusuf Halacoglu, Ozcan Yeniceri, and Nevzat Bor announced their resignations in a joint statement at a press conference in the capital Ankara.

Reading out the joint statement, Halacoglu said the Good Party had been a “big hope” for the people but criticized “major mistakes” by its executive board.

Faulting the board for failing to nominate a new leader after Meral Askener said she would step aside after losing the June presidential election, Halacoglu said the party had failed people’s hopes.

Halacoglu decried the IYI Party’s poor showing in the June 24 presidential elections, drawing only 7.26 percent of the votes.

“Attracting only 9.96 percent of the [parliamentary] vote, the party couldn’t even get past the 10 percent threshold. Our party has lost.”

The party was able to bypass the 10 percent parliamentary vote threshold only by running in an election alliance with other parties.

The IYI party cannot in its current state get a "positive result," warned Halacoglu.

The ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party currently holds 290 seats in parliament, while the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has 144 seats, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) 67, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) 49, IYI Party 42, Felicity (Saadet) Party 2, Democrat Party (DP) 1, and Grand Unity Party (BBP) 1.

Reporting by Mehmet Tosun:Writing by Nilay Kar