About 300 members resign from Turkey’s ruling party, join opposition

PanARMENIAN.Net - More than 280 members of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Afyonkarahisar province resigned and joined the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) after a candidate they supported for mayor of the İhsaniye district was not nominated to run in the municipal elections to be held in March, Today’s Zaman reports.

At an event in İhsaniye's Republic Square on Saturday, Feb 8, the head of the CHP in Afyonkarahisar, Yalçın Görgöz, and CHP Afyonkarahisar deputy Ahmet Toptaş introduced Tunay Türkmen as the CHP candidate for the office of İhsaniye mayor. Five other candidates for municipal offices were also presented.

The former AK Party members were represented at the event by İhsan Yaşık, who held up a framed document that he said was confirmation of the receipt of the 288 letters of resignation that had been submitted to the AK Party İhsaniye district head, Ayhan Uylaş.

Yaşık explained that he and the other AK Party members had decided to resign from the party because they had supported Veli Kaplan to be the party's mayoral candidate, but AK Party officials had selected Lokman Ekici instead, according to Today’s Zaman.

Noting that the group had agreed that they could not support Ekici, Yaşık said: “For this reason, a total of 288 people resigned from the AK Party and joined the CHP. We have framed the document proving that AK Party district head Ayhan Uylaş picked up the resignation letters in person. We will hang this on the wall of our CHP district building as an AK Party disgrace.”