Devlet Bahçeli, chairman of the far-right National Action Party (MHP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main coalition partner, released a statement yesterday (June 12) hinting at cracks within the ruling alliance. Erdoğan’s recent meetings with the main opposition leader and Republican People’s Party Chairman Özgür Özel, as well as ongoing controversy over the assassination of a former MHP member have contributed to the current friction between the president and Bahçeli. These developments come after the ruling alliance suffered a historically poor showing in local elections in March.
In a statement released Wednesday, Bahçeli criticized Erdoğan’s recent meeting with Özel, saying the entente threatens to create “a new equation with many unknowns”. Following the rout suffered by his coalition in the recent local elections, Erdoğan promised to usher in a new era of ‘political normalization and softening’, headlined by a push for a new constitution as well as meetings with the opposition.
Recent events, however, such as the removal of a democratically elected Kurdish mayor in the southeastern Hakkari province, as well as a harsh crackdown on May 1st demonstrations in İstanbul, have thrown the promised ‘political softening’ into doubt.
In his Wednesday statement, Bahçeli rejected the notion that the MHP was seeking to exacerbate polarization in Turkey, saying “Polarization and fighting never produce results or conclusions. The duty of political parties is to seek solutions to our nation’s problems through common sense and dialogue.”
Assassination of Sinan Ateş
In recent weeks, controversy surrounding the December 2022 assassination of MHP member and Grey Wolves chairman Sinan Ateş has picked up steam as Ateş’s widow Ayşe has met with both President Erdoğan and with opposition leader Özel in a bid to bring her husband’s killers to justice.
Ateş was killed in Ankara on December 30, 2022 in a targeted hit. Since his murder, speculation has abounded regarding potential links between his assassins and the MHP and Grey Wolves organizations, but the murder remains unresolved.
The Grey Wolves is a far-right ultranationalist organization usually considered to be the youth or paramilitary wing of the MHP.
In his statement, Bahçeli criticized the controversy over Ateş’s murder as an attempted ‘character assassination’ towards MHP officials:
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Medyascope’u senin desteğin ayakta tutuyor. Hiçbir patronun, siyasi çıkarın güdümünde değiliz; hangi haberi yapacağımıza biz karar veriyoruz. Tıklanma uğruna değil, kamu yararına çalışıyoruz. Bağımsız gazeteciliğin sürmesi, sitenin açık kalması ve herkesin doğru bilgiye erişebilmesi senin desteğinle mümkün.
“The recent indictment is a character assassination directed at the nationalist movement that seeks to drag people’s names through the mud and poisoning the political environment instead of pursuing actual justice.”
Cryptic comments regarding CHP talks
In an excerpt of Bahçeli’s statement that fueled speculation over the future of his party’s alliance with Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), the MHP leader seemed to take aim at Erdoğan’s recent meetings with the opposition leader, suggesting that the two sides form a coalition:
“It is the sincere wish and wish of the Nationalist Movement Party that a broad-based alliance be formed between the AKP and CHP, with the support of other elements of the Table of Six.”
The Table of Six was a now-disbanded coalition of opposition parties, including the CHP, that unsuccessfully attempted to defeat President Erdoğan in 2023’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
Written/translated for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
