Hearing the footsteps of Meral Akşener
The dust is settling down after the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the ultraconservative Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leadership should accept the challenge of the inner-party opposition leaders and call for an extraordinary convention that will change the rules of the party statute and allow the election of the party chairman provided enough delegates demand a convention.
MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli countered by calling for an extraordinary convention on July 10 that will elect the chairman of the party despite the fact that he was elected for a term until 2018.
Bahçeli declared he will be a candidate and will seek re-election.
On the opposition front, Meral Akşener seems to be emerging as the favorite not only to challenge Bahçeli but also to bring him down.
Those who strongly oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AK Party) have embraced Akşener as the potential person to challenge the current government. They include some leading Istanbul businessmen who can no longer siphon off and plunder state funds and the clandestine Gülen Movement that has tried to topple Erdoğan in the past and failed.
Akşener seems to be building up her power base among MHP delegates. Some feel Bahçeli is not capable of leading the party in any possible future elections, a view shared by quite a few MHP parliamentarians, and some who have defected to the Akşener front thanks to financial incentives. There are three more challengers but observers say they all together would not manage to assemble the support of more than 90 delegates. There are about 1,200 delegates in the MHP and according to insiders, Akşener has managed to gain the support of about 700 of them including the votes of other challengers who may eventually drop off.
Bahçeli should see that he will face a tough challenge and act accordingly.
His options are not too many. On the one side he has people who have really lost hope in him. On the other hand he faces Akşener who has funds and the backing of a sizeable portion of the grassroots.
One option for Bahçeli is to throw Akşener out of the party due to disciplinary reasons and thus end the challenge of a real threat. But that would only sharpen the resolve of the delegates who are already writing him off and create cracks within the MHP ranks not only among the grassroots but in the party executive as well as in the MHP parliamentary group. That could lead to the formation of a new political party by Akşener...
So Bahçeli is really in a tight corner.
This of course is bad news for President Erdoğan and the AK Party. In the short run, the AK Party needs the parliamentary support of the MHP if it wants to push through the constitutional change to allow the president to become a party member. Erdoğan and the AK Party want this as it will allow the president to lead the AK Party and thus create real bonds and links between the head of state and his party...
In the long run, the AK Party does not want a potential conservative enemy in the political field that could eat into its conservative votes... With the MHP convention and its repercussions for the AK Party we are in for a long hot summer...
MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli countered by calling for an extraordinary convention on July 10 that will elect the chairman of the party despite the fact that he was elected for a term until 2018.
Bahçeli declared he will be a candidate and will seek re-election.
On the opposition front, Meral Akşener seems to be emerging as the favorite not only to challenge Bahçeli but also to bring him down.
Those who strongly oppose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AK Party) have embraced Akşener as the potential person to challenge the current government. They include some leading Istanbul businessmen who can no longer siphon off and plunder state funds and the clandestine Gülen Movement that has tried to topple Erdoğan in the past and failed.
Akşener seems to be building up her power base among MHP delegates. Some feel Bahçeli is not capable of leading the party in any possible future elections, a view shared by quite a few MHP parliamentarians, and some who have defected to the Akşener front thanks to financial incentives. There are three more challengers but observers say they all together would not manage to assemble the support of more than 90 delegates. There are about 1,200 delegates in the MHP and according to insiders, Akşener has managed to gain the support of about 700 of them including the votes of other challengers who may eventually drop off.
Bahçeli should see that he will face a tough challenge and act accordingly.
His options are not too many. On the one side he has people who have really lost hope in him. On the other hand he faces Akşener who has funds and the backing of a sizeable portion of the grassroots.
One option for Bahçeli is to throw Akşener out of the party due to disciplinary reasons and thus end the challenge of a real threat. But that would only sharpen the resolve of the delegates who are already writing him off and create cracks within the MHP ranks not only among the grassroots but in the party executive as well as in the MHP parliamentary group. That could lead to the formation of a new political party by Akşener...
So Bahçeli is really in a tight corner.
This of course is bad news for President Erdoğan and the AK Party. In the short run, the AK Party needs the parliamentary support of the MHP if it wants to push through the constitutional change to allow the president to become a party member. Erdoğan and the AK Party want this as it will allow the president to lead the AK Party and thus create real bonds and links between the head of state and his party...
In the long run, the AK Party does not want a potential conservative enemy in the political field that could eat into its conservative votes... With the MHP convention and its repercussions for the AK Party we are in for a long hot summer...
Last Update: May 27, 2016 01:56