No government without AKP, Turkey's nationalist opposition says

ANKARA

DHA Photo

There can be no government without the involvement of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as the largest party in the new parliament, a senior Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy has stated, as jostling to form a coalition government continues in Ankara. 

“If you look at the election results, you see that the people voted for the AKP and gave it 258 lawmakers. But it deprived it of government. The people said ‘You can’t form government on your own.’ But there are no coalition alternative that exclude the AKP,” MHP Deputy Head Mevlüt Karakaya told BBC Turkish on June 18. 

Karakaya’s statement is another sign that the nationalist party is closing the doors to a potential partnership with the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which would require outside support from the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). 

However, he also suggested that the AKP could still form a government with either the CHP or the HDP, as all three are in favor of the continuation of the Kurdish peace process. One of the MHP’s most important conditions for forming a government with the AKP is the termination of the peace process, while another condition is the return of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to within his constitutional boundaries. 

“If they do not meet these conditions, then responsibility for the failure of forming a government would be on the AKP’s side. The AKP would face a huge disaster in snap elections if this was the reason for a failure to form a government. They are aware of this, so I think they will find a middle way going forward. They have to do it,” Karakaya said. 

He also claimed that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was in favor of forming a government with the MHP, which is how he could escape the “tutelage” imposed on him by President Erdoğan.