Efforts by dissidents inside the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to collect signatures for an extraordinary congress may be insufficient to topple the party's chairman, Devlet Bahçeli, as party bylaws do not allow elections in extraordinary congresses.

According to the bylaws of the MHP, even though dissidents collect enough signatures to call for an extraordinary congress, which is around 250, Bahçeli has the option to not set a date within 15 days. The dissidents will have the chance to take their case to court. Even then, there will not be an election for the chairmanship in an extraordinary congress since MHP bylaws disallow it.

Meral Akşener, a former MHP deputy who has been accused of being a tool of the controversial Gülen Movement to take over the party, recently asserted that she has collected a sufficient number of signatures.

Sinan Oğan and Koray Aydın, two other dissidents with a chance of standing against Bahçeli, will join forces with Akşener in submitting signatures to the MHP head office.

"Our work for demanding an extraordinary congress is in the completion phase. After this stage, along with our fellow candidates who are collecting signatures, we can start the application process in accordance with a date that we can decide on by gathering the signatures that we have," Akşener said without openly citing the number of signatures she has collected.

The first obstacle in the way of the dissidents appears to be changing the bylaws. The bylaws must be changed if the dissidents are to have any chance of toppling Bahçeli. If dissidents manage to take the MHP to an extraordinary congress, the aim will reportedly be to allow elections in extraordinary congresses.

Recently, a poll conducted by MAK Consultancy asked 5,670 participants in 31 provinces who should be the next chairman of the MHP. MAK's survey revealed that 34 percent of participants prefer Akşener, followed by Bahçeli with 26 percent.