Key Turkish parties form anti-Erdogan alliance
ankara — Four Turkish political parties, including the main opposition, are set to join forces to fight snap June elections called by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an official and reports said on Wednesday.
Turkish media, including the NTV broadcaster, said the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) would join forces with the new Iyi (Good) Party as well as the conservative Saadet (Felicity) Party and the centre-right Democrat Party.
Turkey is due to vote in simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24. The alliance would see the parties have joint lists for parliament although they would have their own separate candidates for president, the reports said.
Talks between the parties were ongoing ahead of an expected signing of the alliance protocol on Thursday, a CHP source, who did not wish to be named, told AFP.
The government lambasted the move as merely a ploy to oppose Erdogan at any cost, with Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag scoffing it was a “forced alliance like a forced marriage”.
The alliance is in response to Erdogan’s own partnership with the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) earlier this year. The MHP is supporting Erdogan’s bid for the presidency.
The four-way alliance will bring together a disparate collection of political forces united by a shared opposition to Erdogan.
The CHP sees itself as the watchdog of Turkey’s secular traditions, the Iyi Party is a new nationalist formation, Saadet is religiously conservative while the Democrat Party was in power in the 1990s. —