site.btaMRF Founder Ahmed Dogan Proposes Two Co-leaders at Party's Helm

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Founder and Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan, who took over the party's day-to-day leadership in 2023 after Mustafa Karadayi resigned as leader, said on Wednesday he is worried that the MRF is poised to become "a corporate partisan organization working for payment".

In a statement circulated by the MRF press office, Dogan said: "I am aware that you cannot do politics without funding, but there is a red line which, if crossed, will lend us a different political quality. The interests of 'market democracy' are 'eating up' the traditional values of democracy. Sadly, this can be said of all political forces."

The MRF Founder sees a need to reinforce the relationship between the party structures and "active citizens". Therefore, he called for urgent stabilization of the party's organizational makeup in the areas traditionally considered as MRF strongholds, and expansion of the party's presence in other areas.

Dogan recommended to the MRF members and supporters a formula for the party's future development. The key element of that formula is sharing the MRF top leadership between the party's Floor Leader Delyan Peevski and MP Dzhevdet Chakarov.

Dogan's idea is that Chakarov should be mainly in charge of the MRF's strongholds, relations with Turkiye and contacts with liberal parties. For 14 years now, Chakarov has served with the Bureau of the Liberal International, including as its vice president.

Peevski, as a member of the new generation of technocrats in politics, should work mainly for expanding the MRF's electoral presence, Dogan suggested. He said that Peevski seems to have an innate instinct for pragmatic solutions to the problems of the people and the nation. Over a short period of time Peevski has emerged as a parliamentarian and should continue to develop along these lines, Dogan said.

According to him, Chakarov and Peevski should complement each other as future MRF co-leaders rather than compete with each other.