The meeting issued a joint statement that the coalition "seeks to win as many municipalities as possible," Turkey's NTV reported.

Open Alliance

Karamollahoglu said on Thursday that the alliance will not neglect to discuss with other parties, referring to the possibility of expanding the bilateral alliance.

Davutoglu confirmed this by saying: "Our plan for the alliance will be available to other parties when they approach positively."

After the loss of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and candidate of the "Umma Alliance" for the presidential elections, last May, some of his partners in the alliance consisting of 6 parties, including the "Happiness" and "Future" parties, accused him of being the cause of the loss, and criticized his refusal to resign from the party's presidency, warning that his survival will affect the opposition's chances in the municipal elections.

The "Happiness" and "Future" parties cooperated after the parliamentary elections, where they formed a unified parliamentary group, after each failed to obtain the minimum number of deputies to form a single group of 20 deputies.

Electoral chances

Turkish political analyst Nasser Sinki explains to Sky News Arabia what he sees as the reasons why the two parties go to the alliance away from the table of the Nation Alliance:

  • The main reason is the breakup of the Nation Alliance after losing the presidential and parliamentary elections.
  • The Nation Alliance ended the night the results of those elections came out.
  • The two parties are intellectually close together and have a common bloc in parliament.
  • According to the municipal election law, they are entitled to field candidates in all regions, but they realize that their chances of winning city municipalities are difficult for them.
  • So they will seek to win some neighborhood municipalities in areas where they believe they have a majority, such as the Fatih district of Istanbul, and I think even this possibility will be low.
  • Nor do I think they can compete in the areas of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People's Alliance (a coalition made up of the ruling party and the Nationalist Movement Party) in the areas controlled by this alliance, which are conservative cities.

Conflicting statements

In the latest inconsistent statements by Good Party leaders on the municipal elections, HalkTV, a channel close to the opposition, quoted an unnamed leader, as saying that the party is slowing down in fielding candidates in Ankara and Istanbul, while fielding a candidate in Izmir, the party's vice president, Umit Azoualali.

According to the Turkish newspaper "Sol Haber", this was attributed to the good relations between Meral Aksener and Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of Ankara, and Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, who is scheduled to run again on the list of the Republican People's Party.

However, Aksener said in an interview on YouTube this month that her party would put forward its candidates in other cities and compete in Ankara and Istanbul, although the final decision had not been made.