Connection to Erdogan?
Shots fired at the office of a Turkish opposition politician
3/31/2023, 4:03 p.m
Shots are said to have been fired at an office of the party of Turkish opposition politician Aksener. She brings President Erdogan in connection with the attack. But she’s not afraid of him, she says, pretending to be combative ahead of the May 14 elections.
The Turkish opposition has taken President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the crossfire in connection with the alleged shelling of a party office. “I’m not afraid, Mr. Recep,” said popular opposition politician Meral Aksener of the Iyi party. “On May 14, you will change this filthy, disgusting system,” she told voters, referring to the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.
According to the Istanbul governor’s office, a political party’s office in Istanbul and an adjacent shopping center were recently hit by “shells”. Pictures of a bullet hole in a pane, next to a large portrait of Aksener, circulated online. At first nothing was known about the background of the crime.
Aksener himself drew a connection between the incident and previous threats by Erdogan against her. There is no evidence of this so far. Erdogan recently told her not to make him mess with her. Aksener took this as a threat and recommended “chamomile tea” to calm the President down.
Aksener, politician of the nationalist Iyi party, supports the candidate of the main opposition party, CHP, Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the election campaign. An alliance of six Turkish opposition parties has agreed on a common candidate for the presidential elections in May. Before founding the Iyi party, she was a member of the ultra-nationalist MHP, Erdogan’s current government partner. In the 1990s she was Turkey’s Minister of the Interior.