The Good Party (IP) of Türkiye’s opposition cannot seem to shake its downhill path as it loses another parliamentary seat.
Party spokesperson Kürşad Zorlu on Thursday announced his resignation in a post on X, joining over a dozen of his colleagues who departed the party following its poor performance in the March 31 municipal elections last year.
“The Good Party set out on a journey of change at its fifth extraordinary congress on April 27, 2024, but in the eight months since, I have sadly observed that the opportunity to advance toward a shared target has been lost,” Zorlu wrote.
He had joined the party in November 2022.
With his resignation, the party’s number of seats in Parliament fell to 29.
The party also lost some 100,000 members in 2024 as several local branches of the party resigned en masse upon failure at general and municipal elections. Currently, the party has about 400,000 members.
The IP had secured 44 seats in the 2023 legislative elections. Those were accompanied by a general election, in which it endorsed Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate of the six-party opposition alliance against incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
After Erdoğan won a runoff, the party’s then-chair, Meral Akşener, faced mounting criticism, which worsened after the disastrous results in the March 31 municipal elections, and she was replaced by Müsavat Dervişoğlu in May.
Dervişoğlu admitted in July that more people may leave the party. “There may be new resignations, and I can ask those not fulfilling their responsibilities to step down,” he said.
In the municipal elections, the IP, which secured only 3.77% of the vote, trailed behind the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose former members include Akşener, Aydın and Dervişoğlu, among many others.
“It is no bed of roses for the IP,” Dervişoğlu acknowledged. “But I won’t beg anyone who intends to leave.”
The IP thrived on the votes of former supporters of the MHP who were disillusioned with the latter’s alliance with the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Another group split from the MHP founded the far-right Victory Party (ZP), but it fared worse than the IP in municipal elections.
The party aspires to regain the trust of supporters disappointed with defeat in local elections. Yet, the results showed that the only path to success is through an alliance with other parties, which will be figured out in the next general elections in 2028.
Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) currently has the most seats in Parliament with 267 lawmakers, followed by its main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), at 129.
Parties must have at least 20 lawmakers to form a parliamentary group.