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55-532: Akşener first entered parliament as a deputy of the True Path Party (DYP) in the 1995 and 1999 general election , and served as the interior minister in the coalition government established by Necmettin Erbakan between 1996 and 1997. Distrustful of her coalition partner, she played a key role in the downfall of her own government in the 1997 military memorandum . Akşener entered the parliament as

110-682: A contract killer for the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). He led the Grey Wolves , the youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), during the 1970s. His death in the Susurluk car crash , while travelling in a car with state officials, revealed the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime in what became known as the Susurluk scandal . He was a hitman for

165-659: A Member of Parliament of the True Path Party (DYP) for Şanlıurfa province and a Kurdish village guards leader, was the sole person to survive the crash. His militia, funded by the Turkish state, was active against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The Susurluk scandal exposed the deep state in Turkey . At the time of his death, Çatlı was a convicted fugitive, wanted for drug trafficking and murder but carried on him 6 different identifications of which one

220-655: A candidate for the chairmanship. She was succeeded by her preferred candidate: Müsavat Dervişoğlu , in the party's fifth extraordinary congress . Defamation cases against the President President and AKP Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dropped his lawsuits and complaints against former IYI Party Chairperson Meral Akşener. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan 's lawyer Hüseyin Aydın made a statement on his social media account: "Our esteemed President has waived his lawsuits and complaints against Meral Akşener. In this context,

275-467: A daughter named Gökçen, who is currently a doctoral student in politics and international relations. Later he had another daughter, Selcen. His daughter Gökçen wrote a biography, referring to diaries stretching back ten years, in order to correct alleged inaccuracies that were circulated after his death. Gökçen said "My father had his own understanding of justice. He was trying to achieve this justice with his group on behalf of his nation." Another book

330-603: A deputy of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the 2007 , 2011 and June 2015 general elections , serving as a vice-speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2007 to 2015. After tensions between her and the MHP's leader Devlet Bahçeli , she was not nominated as an MP for the November 2015 general election . In 2016, she led a group of opposition within the party against Bahçeli. In 2017 she separated from

385-707: A goose". Though they shared their opposition to the Islamism of the Welfare Party , Akşener's disagreements with the military in the lead-up to the 1997 coup were ultimately over whether the ousting of the Islamists would be done through democratic means or through military intervention. Akşener accused Abdullah Öcalan of being "Armenian spawn" ( Ermeni tohumu ). Akşener frequently uses nicknames for government-aligned politicians, some of which tend to stick. She dubbed Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak

440-458: A majority, Çiller instead formed a coalition government with Necmettin Erbakan 's Islamist Refah Party . From the outset, Akşener was opposed to the arrangement but Çiller kept her close by appointing her as one of the DYP’s general vice presidents, as well as giving her responsibility for the party's General Governing Council and women’s and youth issues. Akşener replaced Mehmet Ağar as Minister of

495-517: A thing is necessary for this country, for this nation’s unity and togetherness, I will take responsibility right to the end" While Akşener carried out the military's demands in the lead-up to the 1997 military memorandum , one of her appointees was charged with wiretapping high-ranking commanders of the Turkish Armed Forces , which created friction between her and the Turkish military. One general allegedly threatened to "impale her like

550-666: Is able to return Turkey to a parliamentary system . She agreed to invite the DEVA and Future Party to the Nation Alliance, turning it into a 6-party coalition, called the Table of Six. On 3 March 2023, Akşener abruptly announced her withdrawal from the Nation Alliance , and announced her party would not support main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as the joint candidate in the 2023 presidential election, imploring

605-536: The 1994 municipal elections , running for the True Path Party (DYP) as the mayoral candidate for Kocaeli . Catching DYP chairwoman and then prime minister Tansu Çiller 's attention, Akşener became the chair of the women's branch of the DYP and entered parliament in the 1995 general election as a DYP deputy from Istanbul province . Akşener was a proponent of governing with the Motherland Party but, lacking

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660-569: The 2007 election . In response, the leadership of the DYP and that of the conservative Motherland Party (ANAP) announced their intention to merge under the name of the former Democratic Party (DP). Ultimately, the ANAP pulled out of the merger, though the True Path Party went through with the rebranding, and transformed into the new Democratic Party (DP) in May 2007. The new DP only polled 6% in

715-625: The ASALA , with help from MİT. These included the Alfortville Armenian Genocide Memorial Bombing on 3 May 1984 and the attempted murder of activist Ara Toranian . The Turkish intelligence service (MIT) paid Çatlı in heroin, and he was eventually arrested in Paris on 24 October 1984 for drug trafficking. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and in 1988 he was handed over to Switzerland, where he

770-777: The BND , the German intelligence agency, [which had] promised him a nice sum of money if he implicated the Russian and Bulgarian services in the assassination attempt against the Pope ". Çatlı then went to France, where, under the alias of Hasan Kurtoğlu, he planned a series of attacks (18 in France and the rest in Yugoslavia , Lebanon, Germany, Canada, the US and Austria) on Armenian interests and on

825-447: The PKK and we shall be bringing their members to account." Beginning on 14 January 1994, almost a hundred people were kidnapped by commandos wearing uniforms and travelling in police vehicles and then killed somewhere along the road from Ankara to Istanbul. Çatlı demanded money from people who were on "Çiller's list", promising to get their names removed. One of his victims, Behçet Cantürk ,

880-530: The Turkey's military , which is integrated to common NATO defense systems, saying that in case of conclusion of such a purchase and its delivery, the S400 missiles would just rot in hangars. She went on to say that such moves by the ruling AKP degraded Turkey's foreign policy , conflicting with 150-year-old Turkish foreign policy principles. In an April 2020 interview, she stated that she was in favour of reinstating

935-401: The death penalty in Turkey for terrorists and perpetrators of violence against women. During the 1990s, Akşener threatened journalists who spoke out against the government, saying: "Until now, we have succeeded in preventing any unwanted event happening. Still we will try. But after today, we know we will have difficulty in holding back our Tansu-Çiller-fanatical youths. We are warning you for

990-480: The " Damat " (royal son-in-law) after his marriage to Esra Erdoğan . Meral Gürer married Tuncer Akşener, an engineer, in 1980. Their son, Fatih Akşener, was born in 1984. Meral Akşener has been described as a devout Muslim who prays regularly. She is known to her supporters as Asena , after the mythical she-wolf . She supports the football teams Galatasaray and Kocaelispor . True Path Party The True Path Party ( Turkish : Doğru Yol Partisi , DYP )

1045-517: The "innovative wing" of the Welfare Party , led by Abdullah Gül and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . The innovative wing founded the AKP on 14 August. However she was dissatisfied with the continuation of the National Outlook ( Turkish : Milli Görüş) ideology in the new party, and joined the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in 3 November. She immediately became chief advisor for political affairs to

1100-613: The CHP and Good Party agreed to compete in separate provinces, and nominated Mansur Yavaş as a joint candidate for the Ankara mayoralty . The two campaigned together during the election. While the Good Party didn't win any mayoralties, Yavaş won Ankara, the CHP took the cities of Istanbul , Bolu , Antalya , Mersin , Bilecik , Artvin , Ardahan and Kırşehir from the AKP, and the Good Party

1155-484: The CHP, Good Party, Felicity Party , and Democrat Party formed the Nation Alliance as an electoral alliance to challenge the People's Alliance made up of the AKP and MHP. Akşener was the Good Party's presidential candidate in the election and received 7.3% of the vote, while her party captured 43 seats. The Nation Alliance continued with the 2019 local elections . After negotiations between Akşener and Kılıçdaroğlu,

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1210-459: The DYP, were former AP members. Later, the party won power in the 1991 general election , after having emerged as the largest party. Demirel subsequently returned to the premiership in the period from 1991 to 1993, before securing the Presidency of Turkey that year. Subsequently, both the DYP leadership and the premiership passed to Tansu Çiller , another prominent member of the party. Çiller

1265-533: The Interior after his resignation due to his involvement in the Susurluk scandal , becoming the first female interior minister in Turkish history. Akşener replaced many officials with ties to organized crime but even she was implicated when it emerged that she attended a wedding with Ağar and Abdullah Çatlı . Suspicious of her coalition partner, Akşener backed a rejected bill to replace Refah mayors that were governing against secular principles, which contributed to

1320-401: The MHP and founded the Good Party, of which she was the leader. She was the party's presidential candidate for the 2018 elections . Akşener was a key opposition figure in Turkish politics and has been dubbed as an "iron lady" by international observers. She resigned her leadership following her party's defeat in the 2024 local elections , with Müsavat Dervişoğlu succeeding her. Meral Akşener

1375-459: The MHP chair Devlet Bahçeli . However like most of the long-established parties, the MHP was ejected from parliament when it wasn't able to clear the 10% threshold for entering parliament in the 2002 election , and Akşener lost her seat. She was MHP's candidate for the Istanbul mayoralty in the 2004 mayoral elections . Akşener rejoined parliament in 2007 , representing Istanbul province , and

1430-507: The MHP lost half of its MPs in the election and Bahçeli openly supported Erdoğan; Akşener demanded an extraordinary congress to oust him. On 8 September 2016, she was expelled from the MHP and was accused of having links to 2016 putschists. She promised to start her own political party. Under her leadership, the Good Party was founded on 25 October 2017. In her first address to her followers, Akşener said she believed that Turkish democracy

1485-519: The MHP. Akşener criticized the move by the Erdoğan administration to purchase S-400 missile systems from Russia in a move to distance the country from NATO and the West, stating that the move lacks common sense and wisdom and invited Erdoğan for calmness and to have "information on history". Akşener explained that the move makes no sense as the missiles are not compatible with the existing infrastructure of

1540-493: The Social Sciences Institute of Marmara University , earning a Ph.D. in history. She then worked as a lecturer at Yıldız Technical University , Kocaeli University and Marmara University before entering politics. Meral's older brother was president of MHP's İzmit branch, which gave her connections to right-wing politicians. Akşener quit her post as a university department chair and entered politics with

1595-476: The Table of Six after intense public criticism and after it was announced that Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş would be appointed Vice-Presidents if Kılıçdaroğlu wins the presidential election. Kılıçdaroğlu lost the presidential election , and the Good Party received 9.7% of the vote in the parliamentary election . Akşener announced the dissolution of the Nation Alliance after the election. Some commentators speculated that her very public withdrawal might have cost

1650-425: The campaign period, she harshly criticized the CHP and the two mayors, aiming to present her party as a third way . The Good Party polled its worst ever result with 3.7% nationally and the sixth largest party, winning only the municipality of Nevşehir . In a press release on 8 April, 2024, Akşener announced that the Good Party would host an extraordinary leadership congress, and that she would not run for reelection as

1705-752: The complaint was withdrawn in three investigation files opened on the charge of insulting the President, and four civil lawsuits for moral damages were waived." Akşener, in addition to being the first woman candidate for the Turkish presidency in history, put great emphasis on women's rights in Turkey and made this a central plank of her presidential campaign. Her campaign drew attention to the drastic increase of cases of violence against women and rape in Turkey under AKP administration. Akşener declared her pledge to lift good conduct time in all cases of violence against women and rape, and instead of forcefully sending women to therapy in such cases, her party would send

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1760-673: The drum of one of the machine guns used to assassinate Ömer Lütfü Topal. In 1996, Çatlı kidnapped the TV businessman Mehmet Ali Yaprak and demanded a ransom of four million deutschmarks . Çatlı died in a car crash on 3 November 1996 in Susurluk , a town in the province of Balıkesir . Also killed in the crash were Hüseyin Kocadağ , the Director of the Police Academy in Istanbul and Gonça Us (Abdullah Çatlı's girlfriend). Sedat Bucak ,

1815-581: The election, and remained out of the Grand National Assembly until 2018, when it received one seat on the Good Party list. DYP rebranded itself to the Democratic Party in its 2007 Congress, however Çetin Özaçıkgöz reestablished the DYP. It received 0.15% of the votes in the 2011 elections . Abdullah %C3%87atl%C4%B1 Abdullah Çatlı (1 June 1956 – 3 November 1996) was a Turkish secret government agent, as well as

1870-462: The escalation of the 1997 military memorandum crisis. She was forced out of office following the collapse of the REFAH-DYP (Refahyol) government , due to the memorandum. In 1999 she was re-elected to parliament as a deputy for Kocaeli province , but sensing DYP's decline, she led a group of DYP members against Çiller by courting other right-wing parties. On 4 July 2001, Akşener left the DYP for

1925-529: The far right Great Union Party attended his funeral and Mehmet Ali Ağca sent flowers from prison in Rome. Annual memorial ceremonies are held at his grave, to which also the members of the Grey Wolves attend. Çatlı's father was Ahmet Çatlıoğlu; the "-oğlu" suffix is a patronymic . Çatlı had a brother, Zeki. Abdullah Çatlı married his neighbor Meral Aydoğan on 10 August 1974. On 22 May 1975, they had

1980-459: The full adoption of UNESCO Animal Rights Declaration. She adopted a cat named Cedric , which was found raped and covered in blood on a street in Foça , Izmir. During her MHP days as Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly , even back in 2010, Akşener held a pro-EU stance and held many meetings with EU officials representing Turkey, and was described as the head of the pro-European wing inside

2035-399: The last time." In 2016, Akşener claimed that her tenure as interior minister saw security services conduct "the longest, broadest, and most comprehensive cross-border actions [against the PKK ] in history. I’m sorry to say there are some on social media who say ‘Meral Akşener can’t be MHP leader, she’s responsible for unsolved murders.’ Let them say what they will; I’m fine with all of it. If

2090-475: The mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem İmamoğlu or Mansur Yavaş of the CHP, to run instead. She stated that the other four parties of the alliance secretly agreed to support Kılıçdaroğlu as their candidate if the CHP put their some 70 of their MPs on its lists; this claim was refuted by DEVA's deputy chairman Mehmet Emin Ekmen. İmamoğlu and Yavaş chose to stand by their chairman. On 6 March, she and her party rejoined

2145-445: The opposition the election by showing to voters the disunity of the coalition. Aytun Çıray , a former Good Party MP and General Secretary, has claimed Akşener's move was a conspiracy initiated by Erdoğan to spoil the unity of the opposition. In the lead up to the 2024 local elections , Akşener announced that her party would enter on its own lists across all 81 provinces, including against her previous clients, İmamoğlu and Yavaş. During

2200-535: The permit to carry firearms. After Çatlı died, Ağar initially claimed Çatlı was probably arrested by the Turkish authorities and been brought to justice until it was discovered that the group had stayed in the same hotel for three days, and it was the same hotel in which Ağar also stayed. Following, Ağar resigned. Çatli was also wanted by the Interpol for having escaped from a Swiss prison. Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu from

2255-493: The perpetrator to mandatory therapy before or after serving their sentence and therapy for women would be optional. She is heavily against child marriages. Although there was an increase in participation of women in the workforce in Turkey, Akşener stated she finds this inadequate and would implement benevolent sexism to increase participation of women in workforce and to reduce the wage gap . Akşener has been an animal rights advocate throughout her career, and has campaigned for

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2310-478: The restrictions" imposed by the government on public gatherings, freedom of expression, and constraints on the media. Initially, the Good Party only had five MPs, not enough to form a parliamentary group to participate in an election, but Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu , leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), transferred 15 MPs to her party to allow it to compete in the 2018 general election . On 1 May,

2365-649: The state, and was involved in the killings of suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA). Çatlı was born to a Turkish family in the city of Nevşehir . He grew up in Nevşehir , a small province in Central Anatolia . Çatlı was familiar with the views of the far-right MHP and Turkish ultra-nationalists. Çatlı

2420-644: Was "under threat" and that the Good Party wanted a free society and to fix the problems of the Turkish judiciary system . Akşener further stated that the "media should not be under pressure. Democratic participation, a strong parliament, and the national will are irreplaceable. We will democratize the law on political parties along contemporary democratic principles and the criteria of the Venice Commission ." Aksener said that many who were joining her movement were young Turkish citizens who were "chafing under

2475-625: Was a centre-right political party in Turkey , active from 1983 to 2007. For most of its history, the party's central figure was Süleyman Demirel , a former Prime Minister of Turkey who previously led the Justice Party (AP) before it was shut down in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup . The DYP was widely considered the successor of both the AP and the Democrat Party (DP), active in Turkey's early multi-party period . The party

2530-514: Was also wanted on charges of drug dealing. However, he escaped Bostadel prison in March 1990 with the assistance of the Grey Wolves. After he returned to Turkey, he appeared to have been recruited by the police, while also officially been sentenced to death in absentia by the Turkish authorities for several murders. Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller declared on 4 October 1993: "We know the list of businessmen and artists subjected to racketeering by

2585-404: Was an official diplomatic passport on the name Mehmet Özbay. Alparslan Türkeş , the founder of the Grey Wolves and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and a former deputy prime minister of Turkey, admitted to know Çatlı had been cooperated with Turkish authorities for the well-being of the state. The Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar has signed many of the official documents he had, including

2640-575: Was born on 18 July 1956, in the Gündoğdu neighbourhood of İzmit , Kocaeli . Her father Tahir Ömer and her mother Sıddıka are Balkan Turks from Macedonia and Thrace and were among hundreds of thousands who left Greece to resettle in Turkey in 1923 . Her paternal side had migrated to the Balkans from Büyükkadı , one of the few Alevi Turkmen villages of Diyarbakır . She studied history at Istanbul University and completed her post-graduate studies at

2695-523: Was elected vice-speaker of the parliament alongside Güldal Mumcu , another female politician, serving as Turkey's first female vice-speaker since 1968. She served in the Turkey-China Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group of the parliament. She was re-elected as an MP in the 2011 and June 2015 general elections . However, she was not included on the MHP's lists for the November 2015 snap election . When

2750-513: Was established in 1983 and it claimed that it was the exclusive successor of the Justice Party, which at the time also claimed to be a successor of Adnan Menderes ' Democrat Party . The DYP was the main opposition party in the Grand National Assembly from 1987 to 1991. The party strongly relied on the voter basis of the DP and the AP, and announced in 1988, that 70% of the local party heads of

2805-483: Was even involved in the 1981 Pope's assassination attempt ". In February 1982, he was caught with heroin in Switzerland, but managed to escape detention. In 1998 the magazine Le Monde diplomatique alleged that Abdullah Çatlı had organized the assassination attempt "in exchange for the sum of 3 million German mark " for the Grey Wolves . In 1985 in Rome, Çatlı declared to a judge "that he had been contacted by

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2860-619: Was responsible, along with Haluk Kırcı and several other MHP members, for the 9 October 1978 Bahçelievler Massacre in which seven university students, members of the Workers Party of Turkey (TIP), were murdered, in an attack on their apartment. He is also said to have helped Mehmet Ali Ağca murder the left-wing newspaper editor Abdi İpekçi on 1 February 1979, in Istanbul. According to investigative journalist Lucy Komisar , Çatlı "reportedly helped organize Ağca's escape from an Istanbul military prison, and some have suggested Çatlı

2915-453: Was the first female Prime Minister of Turkey, and served until 1996. After then serving as a junior partner in several coalition governments, the party was wiped out of parliament in the 2002 general election , failing to pass the 10% electoral threshold required to win seats. While the party proved able to maintain a presence in local politics after its 2002 ouster from parliament, the DYP appeared likely to again fail to enter parliament in

2970-491: Was the third most popular party. Akşener condemned the decision to repeat the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality elections . During the election campaign, she toured every district of Istanbul and supported Ekrem İmamoğlu in his campaign. Akşener has refused to run for president in the presidential election of 2023 , instead saying that she would run for prime minister once the opposition

3025-420: Was to pay ten million dollars, to which casino king Ömer Lütfü Topal added a further seventeen million. However, after receiving the money, he then went on to have them kidnapped and killed, and sometimes tortured beforehand. According to Mehmet Eymür , a team led by Çatlı was responsible for the 1995 deaths of Iranian spies Lazım Esmaeili and Askar Simitko . Çatlı's fingerprint was also allegedly found on

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