23.05.2026 11:10
Fatih Erbakan, Chairman of the New Welfare Party, who appeared on Haberler.com, responded to the question "In the second round, between President Erdoğan and Mansur Yavaş, which candidate would you support?" by stating, "If he runs as the candidate of right-wing parties, we would support Mr. Mansur in the second round. However, if he runs as the CHP's candidate, it would not be possible for us to support him."
Fatih Erbakan, Chairman of the New Welfare Party, answered questions from News Director Olgun Kızıltepe and Melis Yaşar on the Haberler.com YouTube channel. Erbakan, who evaluated current issues, also responded to the question: "In the second round, between President Erdoğan and Mansur Yavaş, which name would you support?"
"WE WOULD SUPPORT MR. MANSUR"
"First of all, as the New Welfare Party, we will field our own candidate. This will hopefully be us," said Erbakan. "We will make every effort to reach the second round and win the election. There is no doubt about that. But let's say we didn't make it to the second round. And Mr. Mansur entered the election as the candidate of right-wing parties with a reasonable stance. In such a case, support for Mr. Mansur could be possible. However, if Mr. Mansur runs against Mr. Erdoğan as the CHP's candidate, it would not be possible for us to support him in the second round. So, it was like this: The CHP fielded its own candidate. Tayyip Bey is there. Mr. Mansur emerged as a candidate of these right-wing parties. We also ran. At this point, if we don't make it to the second round, we could consider supporting Mr. Mansur as the candidate of right-wing parties. But if he becomes the CHP's candidate, as I said, we would not consider supporting him in any way."
THIRD ALLIANCE DEBATES
Stating that parties with similar voter bases and political discourses could come together, Erbakan said, "As we've said before, parties like the Future Party, the Felicity Party, the Deva Party, the Democrat Party, the Great Unity Party, and the İYİ Party—many parties appealing to right-wing, conservative, and nationalist voters—could come together to create a force and synergy. We also said this before the 2023 elections. They didn't listen to us, and now they see that teaming up with the CHP was actually a huge mistake. No synergy was created. On the contrary, they suffered great damage. So now, we have the potential to be a hope for voters who are tired of both the People's Alliance and the CHP and are seeking a new path."
"OUR VOTE IS ABOVE 10%"
Responding to a question about what the New Welfare Party's vote share would be if an election were held soon, Erbakan said, "It would be above 10%. I say this very confidently. I say it with conviction. Why do I say this? Because I did the math earlier. With 520,000 members, we reached a 7% vote share. And that 7% vote share is from the municipal council elections, not the mayoral elections. The votes for the party in municipal council elections were at the 7% level. And this showed us something: in both the 2023 and 2024 elections, we received six times our number of members in votes. So, with 520,000 members, we got over 3 million votes. With 660,000, we would get close to 4 million votes—even over 4 million. And as we approach the election, we are working to increase our members to 1 million. We aim to raise our vote share from above 10% to 15% and 20%. We work diligently in the field with our organizations as if there were elections every Sunday. Another point I want to make here is this: The highest poll showing us in the 2023 elections gave us 1%. We got 2.9%—nearly three times that. In the 2024 elections, the highest poll showing the New Welfare Party gave us 3%. We got 7%," he said.