Akşener first entered parliament as a deputy of the True Path Party (DYP) in the 1995 and 1999 general election, and served as the interior minister in the coalition government established by Necmettin Erbakan between 1996 and 1997.

Akşener entered the parliament as a deputy of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the 2007, 2011 and June 2015 general elections, serving as a vice-speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2007 to 2015.

Her father Tahir Ömer and her mother Sıddıka are Balkan Turks from Macedonia and Thrace and were among hundreds of thousands who left Greece to resettle in Turkey in 1923.

Akşener quit her post as a university department chair and entered politics with the 1994 municipal elections, running for the True Path Party (DYP) as the mayoral candidate for Kocaeli.

[6] Akşener replaced many officials with ties to organized crime but even she was implicated when it emerged that she attended a wedding with Ağar and Abdullah Çatlı.

[7] Suspicious of her coalition partner, Akşener backed a rejected bill to replace Refah mayors that were governing against secular principles, which contributed to the escalation of the 1997 military memorandum crisis.

[7] On 4 July 2001, Akşener left the DYP for the "innovative wing" of the Welfare Party, led by Abdullah Gül and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

[10] When the MHP lost half of its MPs in the election and Bahçeli openly supported Erdoğan; Akşener demanded an extraordinary congress to oust him.

"[14] Aksener said that many who were joining her movement were young Turkish citizens who were "chafing under the restrictions" imposed by the government on public gatherings, freedom of expression, and constraints on the media.

After negotiations between Akşener and Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP and Good Party agreed to compete in separate provinces, and nominated Mansur Yavaş as a joint candidate for the Ankara mayoralty.

On 3 March 2023, Akşener abruptly announced her withdrawal from the Nation Alliance, and announced her party would not support main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as the joint candidate in the 2023 presidential election, imploring the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem İmamoğlu or Mansur Yavaş of the CHP, to run instead.

[20] She stated that the other four parties of the alliance secretly agreed to support Kılıçdaroğlu as their candidate if the CHP put their some 70 of their MPs on its lists; this claim was refuted by DEVA's deputy chairman Mehmet Emin Ekmen.

On 6 March, she and her party rejoined the Table of Six after intense public criticism and after it was announced that Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş would be appointed Vice-Presidents if Kılıçdaroğlu wins the presidential election.

[26] Aytun Çıray, a former Good Party MP and General Secretary, has claimed Akşener's move was a conspiracy initiated by Erdoğan to spoil the unity of the opposition.

[27] In the lead up to the 2024 local elections, Akşener announced that her party would enter on its own lists across all 81 provinces, including against her previous clients, İmamoğlu and Yavaş.

In a press release on 8 April 2024, Akşener announced that the Good Party would host an extraordinary leadership congress, and that she would not run for reelection as a candidate for the chairmanship.

[29] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's lawyer Hüseyin Aydın made a statement on his social media account: "Our esteemed President has waived his lawsuits and complaints against Meral Akşener.

In this context, the complaint was withdrawn in three investigation files opened on the charge of insulting the President, and four civil lawsuits for moral damages were waived.

"[30] Akşener, in addition to being the first woman candidate for the Turkish presidency in history, put great emphasis on women's rights in Turkey and made this a central plank of her presidential campaign.

"[7] In 2016, Akşener claimed that her tenure as interior minister saw security services conduct "the longest, broadest, and most comprehensive cross-border actions [against the PKK] in history.