The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have already presented the People's Alliance and the Republican People's Party (CHP) is also likely to establish one. Now parties outside Parliament have ramped up efforts to find alliances to be able to enter Parliament in 2019.
As the issue gained crucial significance, small parties outside Parliament are preparing to negotiate for the best deal possible before time runs out and electoral alliances find a legal basis.
The Great Union Party (BBP) is one of them. The socially conservative nationalist party has been in talks with the People's Alliance to join. BBP Chairman Mustafa Destici last week said: "An AK Party, MHP and BBP alliance will easily win the election with 55 or 60 percent of the vote and Turkey will start to be governed by a whole new system." Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ also hinted at the possibility of including the BBP in the alliance. "Mustafa Destici, the chairman of the BBP, has said that his party will join the alliance. Now, it is early to talk about how it will take place. When the time comes, the issue will be discussed," Bozdağ said in a televised interview earlier this week.
However, there have been reports in the Turkish media that the MHP is slightly bothered by the prospect of the BBP joining the alliance. Responding to these rumors, Destici said that the People's Alliance needs his party. "The Great Union Party is a 25-year-old political movement. Pay attention, we are not only a political party, but a dynamic political movement," he said earlier this week.
The socially conservative Felicity Party (SP) is also rumored to be joining the People's Alliance after SP Chairman Temel Karamollaoğlu met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at AK Party headquarters in Ankara last month. However, both SP and AK Party authorities insist that the alliance was not on the agenda in the talks. That being said, Erdoğan has kept the door open for the SP. "I had the conversation, but unfortunately, there has not been any voice coming from there. We have time ahead of us. The door is not closed from our perspective," he said in an interview with journalists during his official visit to Africa on Tuesday.
Karamollaoğlu answered possible alliance rumors after the meeting with Erdoğan on Feb. 9. "We have not received any proposal for an alliance, but we can talk with anyone if need be," he said. It is known that Karamollaoğlu wants to determine the presidential candidate himself.
The center-left Democratic Left Party (DSP) will also seek an alliance for the upcoming elections. DSP Chairman Önder Aksakal said on Tuesday in a televised interview that the DSP will side with the alliance that offers them more seats. İYİ Party (Good Party) Chairwoman Meral Akşener, a former MHP member who was dismissed from the party after disagreements with the MHP leadership, has also recently expressed her hope to forge an alliance with the SP and Democrat Party (DP). "This is what I say as a desire and request. I would very much like to form an alliance with the Felicity Party and the Democrat Party. I told this to Mr. Karamollaoğlu as well, but they want to name a [presidential] candidate," she said.
