You may ask, “Meral Akşener? Where did that come from?” It’s been a year and a half since she bid farewell to both the İYİ Party leadership and active politics. She has remained completely silent since. Yet, in recent days, an unexpected Akşener debate has been simmering—not in the headlines, but in İYİ Party circles. The discussion did not start with her; she has kept her silence. But when Esma Bekar—Akşener’s former chief of staff and perhaps the person closest to her—posted a message, the question suddenly arose: “Is Akşener returning?”
Bekar’s post indirectly referred to the backlash Akşener faced for visiting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after her political retirement. Bekar reminded critics that the current İYİ Party Chair Müsavat Dervişoğlu and other opposition figures also met Erdoğan at official receptions. That prompted a sharp response from Mehmet Tolga Akalın, a vice chair and former chairmanship candidate of the party.
AN ANATOMY OF SPECULATION: A CONSTITUTIONAL BARGAIN?
In his response, Akalın asked Akşener “What’s going on, madam?” and questioned whether her reappearance was part of Erdoğan’s plan to secure the 400 parliamentary votes needed to pass a new constitution without a referendum.
While the political and judicial agenda remains heavy, the Akşener debate continued beneath the surface in the İYİ Party. Some even claimed she could return as a presidential candidate. Both Dervişoğlu and Akşener chose not to engage in the discussion.
A WOMAN IN THE MEN’S CLUB
Meral Akşener first gained prominence in the mid-1990s. She entered Parliament as a member of the True Path Party (DYP) led by Tansu Çiller and later became interior minister in the Erbakan–Çiller coalition—remembered as the “February 28” government in Turkish political history.
A scholar by training, Akşener was rooted in the ultranationalist (ülkücü) tradition of the MHP, which earned her the nickname Asena—the “she-wolf” of Turkic mythology.
After the DYP, she joined her ideological home, the MHP, and served as an MP once again. In 2017, Akşener challenged Devlet Bahçeli’s leadership but was blocked from running amid the AKP–MHP alliance and was eventually expelled. That marked the beginning of the İYİ Party story.
THE WOMAN WHO BLOCKED GÜL’S CANDIDACY
In 2001, before the movement even became a party, Akşener joined what was then called the “Reformists Movement,” the precursor to the AKP — but left shortly after.
Since then, people have often wondered whether she felt closer to Abdullah Gül or to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It turns out her ties with Erdoğan were at the level of family acquaintances. And in 2018, when Gül was ready to accept the opposition’s joint presidential candidacy, it was Akşener who blocked it — by declaring her own candidacy and closing that door.
“EVEN IF YOU RETURN...”
The title of a wistful arabesque song goes, “Even if you return, even if you return / You won’t find me within me.” Perhaps it captures today’s mood. The İYİ Party now stands among the fiercest opponents of the Kurdish peace process, aligned in this stance with the Zafer Party. Some may hope—or fear—that Akşener’s comeback could transform that stance.
Yet the party is now deep in its provincial and district congresses, preparing for its grand congress in December.
That is the real reason behind the “Akşener is coming back” rumors. But both politics and the party itself are shifting ground. Whether she returns or not, she may find there’s no ground left to stand on—or nothing left to return to.
