President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday criticized the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) for moving its 15 lawmakers to another political party "by making them cry".
"You are expelling 15 lawmakers from their home to a place where they did not want to go, by making them cry. Only dictators would do such a thing," Erdoğan told a meeting with provincial heads of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in capital Ankara.
He also rejected criticism of some people who accused the AK Party of imposing a one-man rule.
"If one wants to see a dictator in this country then that person should look at those who forced 15 lawmakers in one night to change their party through political engineering, without showing any reason to its party, public opinion and our nation," Erdoğan said.
On Sunday, 15 deputies from the CHP jumped ship to join the newly-formed Good (IYI) Party.
Last week, Turkey's parliament passed a bill calling for early presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24.
