Nationalist Movement Party
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The Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) is a Turkish far-right political party that adheres to Turkish ultranationalism and Euroscepticism. The group is often described as neo-fascist, and has been linked to violent paramilitaries and organized crime groups.
The party was formed in 1969 by former colonel Alparslan Türkeş, who had become leader of the far-right Republican Villagers Nation Party (CKMP) in 1965. The party mainly followed a Pan-Turkist and ultranationalist political agenda throughout the latter half of the 20th century, but later moderated its views under the leadership of Devlet Bahçeli, who took over after Türkeş's death in 1997. The party's youth wing is the Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar) organization, which is also known as the "Nationalist Hearths" (Ülkü Ocakları). Türkeş, who is widely revered by Turkish nationalists as the founder of the idealist movement, is commonly referred to as "Chieftain" (Başbuğ) by his supporters.
Alparslan Türkeş founded the party after criticising the Republican People's Party (CHP) for moving too far away from the nationalist principles of their founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, claiming that he would have not founded the MHP had the CHP not deviated from Atatürk's ideology. Although Türkeş failed to win any elections, the MHP won enough seats in the 1973 and 1977 general election to take part in two right-wing coalition governments led by Justice Party (AP) leader Süleyman Demirel. Türkeş served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey between 1975 and 1977 in what was referred to as the First Nationalist Front government and again between 1977 and 1978 in the Second Nationalist Front. After Türkeş's death and the election of Devlet Bahçeli as his successor, the party moderated its views and adopted a more mainstream nationalist agenda. The party under Bahçeli's leadership won 18% of the vote and 129 seats in the 1999 general election, its best ever result, coming second only to the Democratic Left Party (DSP). Bahçeli subsequently became Deputy Prime Minister after entering a coalition with the DSP and the Motherland Party (ANAP), though his calls for an early election resulted in the government's collapse in 2002. In the 2002 general election, the MHP fell below the 10% election threshold and lost all of its parliamentary representation after the newly formed Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a plurality.
Since the 2007 general election, in which the MHP won back its parliamentary representation with 14.27% of the vote and 71 seats, the party has strongly opposed the peace negotiations between the government and Kurdish separatist militants and has been fiercely critical of the governing AKP over government corruption and authoritarianism. Nevertheless, the MHP has often been referred to critics as the "AKP's lifeline", having either openly or covertly helped the AKP in situations such as the 2007 presidential election, repealing the headscarf ban and the June–July 2015 parliamentary speaker elections. In the 2011 general election, the party's vote fell to 13% and won 53 seats, though increased to 16.3% and 80 seats in the June 2015 general election. Having consistently maintained third-party status in Parliament since 2007, the MHP halved its parliamentary representation to win 40 seats with 11.9% of the vote in the November 2015 general election, becoming the fourth largest party in Parliament behind the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). The MHP officials support the 2017 referendum.
Since 2015, Bahçeli has been openly supporting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP. This caused a schism within the party, resulting in Meral Akşener leaving MHP to found the nationalist, centrist, and pro-European İYİ Party. Many high-ranking MHP members such as Ümit Özdağ, Sinan Oğan, and Koray Aydın would also either leave it or be expelled later. The MHP supported a 'Yes' vote in the 2017 referendum, and formed the People's Alliance electoral pact with the AKP for the 2018 Turkish general election. MHP currently supports a minority government led by the AKP.