Erdogan threatens members of his party – Details

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to confront his opponents within his ruling Justice and Development Party over major defections.

A few days ago, Erdogan held a meeting with former MPs from the ruling Justice and Development Party in order to keep them in the ruling party and not turn them into the opposition front, according to an article by Turkish journalist Ahmet Takan in the Turkish newspaper Korkusuz.

In an article entitled “Poisoned Food at the Presidential Palace” in the Turkish newspaper Korkusuz, Takan spoke about the conference of the party’s MPs and heads of its people from the founding, until the day the AKP convened.

According to Takan, Erdogan met with former AKP MPs and asked them to join forces with the party during this period of anti-party smear campaigns.

He added: “It was clear during the invitations, otherwise why would the MPs who were ignored by the party until yesterday be invited to come to the presidential palace?”

Takan said he spoke with a number of former MPs who participated in the meeting. These invited MPs are members who have not yet broken away from the party, and I don’t think Erdogan will get what he wants from this meeting, because all the MPs he spoke to were not happy about it.

Takan said the parliamentarians he spoke with told him the atmosphere at the conference was not friendly. “All I can disclose from what I have been informed, provided it is not registered, is that MPs felt that the purpose of this meeting was to deliver a message to them that their transition to another party would not be in their favor, and some considered it a severe threat to them”.

It is worth mentioning that the (1071) recently renounced their membership in the Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement Party, and announced their joining the Good Party led by Meral Akşener. The Good Party in the northeastern province of Erzurum held a celebration this week for the new members and handed them party badges.

Fatih Cengiz, a member of parliament from the Turkish city of Muş, announced that 2,500 more members would join the Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party, in a new blow to President Erdogan’s party, Sputnik reported in mid-2015.