Amid claims that opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli is stepping down from his position after undergoing heart surgery on Wednesday, MHP sources reported on Thursday that he has determined strategies to counter the intra-party opposition's call for an extraordinary congress. According to sources, the MHP's intra-party opposition has also laid out a road map to potentially remove Bahçeli from his position within three months. Bahçeli's strategy against the dissidents includes multiple steps, the foremost of which includes disregarding the opposition then going out into the field to convince MHP members and supporters. A discipline and dismissal period is also to commence as part of the strategy along with annulment of the provincial organizations that support the calls for an extraordinary congress.

Bahçeli had recently said that the only date for the party to hold a congress is March 18, 2018, but former MHP Deputy Meral Akşener said that she and two other dissidents, Sinan Oğan and Koray Aydın, have collected enough signatures to call for an extraordinary congress. Reportedly, Bahçeli and his supporters will first disregard the dissidents and then publicize that there has been no specific timeline given for a congress to be held according to the Political Parties' Law and MHP byways. The second move made by MHP headquarters entails going out into communities and conveying the message of the dissidents to create a negative atmosphere. As the MHP administration will begin a disciplinary and dismissal process for those party members or administrators, sources close to the MHP have claimed that there will be no tolerance for any former deputy, delegation or provincial organization member that the current leadership considers to be an instigator of party defamation.