CHP decides to cancel election rallies, MHP to resume as planned

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) has decided to completely cancel all its public election rallies, while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has opted to continue as planned with the rest of its campaign rallies ahead of the Nov. 1 snap election.

“We have decided to resume the campaign process via initiating one-to-one-contacts with citizens and through district visits instead of mass rallies,” Erdoğan Toprak, the chief advisor to CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, told state-run Anadolu Agency on Oct. 13, citing the Oct. 10 deadly bomb attack in Ankara. 

The CHP had previously suspended all its rallies until Oct. 13.

The MHP had earlier cancelled a planned rally in İzmir scheduled for Oct. 11 following the attack in the capital that killed at least 97 people, after suspending rallies until Oct. 13. The party still planned to hold rallies in Turkey’s three biggest cities – Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir - MHP Deputy Chair Semih Yalçın told Al Jazeera.

The rally in Istanbul will be held as planned on Oct. 18 and the one in Ankara on Oct. 25, Yalçın said.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş earlier said he did not find it necessary to hold huge crowded rallies from now on, saying it would be “both impossible and wrong,” will make its final decision on the matter at a party Central Executive Board (MYK) meeting on Oct. 15. 
 
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), the holder of the caretaker government, had decided to suspend its election rallies until Oct. 16.

“A few rallies on Friday [Oct. 16] and subsequent rallies on a routine schedule, rather than a party rally, will be organized as rallies of ‘unity, peace and fraternity against terror,’” AKP spokesperson Ömer Çelik announced on Oct. 12.