Politics and Betrayal

Turkey’s Marine Le Pen Sabotages Alliance Against Erdogan Ahead of Presidential Election

Less than a day after a nationalist politician broke away from an electoral alliance in a dispute over candidacy for the May presidential election, she got a rebuke from the mayors she proposed for nomination.

Only less than a day after IYI Party leader Meral Aksener split from the notoriously dysfunctional opposition alliance in a dispute over nominating the joint candidate for the upcoming presidential election in May, the names in her mind for nomination offered a stinging rebuke to the veteran nationalist politician. In a publicized and nasty political divorce at a press conference on Friday, Aksener, who is also known as Turkey’s Marine Le Pen, rattled off acrimonious remarks against her former political savior, secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu, for what she claimed dictating his personal will on the five other members of the “Nation Alliance.”

“They left us to choose between death and malaria,” the Iron Lady said in a tone resembling a war declaration. The death, in her veiled description, refers to President Recep…