AKP signals alliance with MHP for local elections

ANKARA

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Deputy Leader Mehmet Özhaseki hinted a possible pre-election alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for the upcoming local elections.

“This nation loves this alliance. There is nothing more normal than to continue with this alliance in the local elections,” Özhaseki said on Sept. 4 in a televised interview on private broadcaster CNN.

His comment came as a positive response to MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli who had also signaled on Sept. 1 that his nationalist party would enter into an alliance with the AKP “in order to hinder the parties” he alleges of having links to outlawed parties.

“Some 27 metropolitan municipalities should never be taken under the control of parties that had been fixed on the orbit of the FETÖ-PKK-PYD,” he said.

“Mr. Devlet is right in his concern. I do not want the PKK to control a neighborhood in Istanbul,” Özhaseki said, associating the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) with the PKK.

“When an alliance with the HDP is mentioned, it means an alliance with the PKK in the eyes of 80 million people,” he said.

The MHP and the AKP had entered into June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections in an alliance called the “People’s Alliance,” after the necessary legal changes were made prior to the elections.

The MHP had also endorsed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s presidential candidacy.

Özhaseki said the alliance with the MHP could continue on upcoming local elections to be held in March 2019.

“It is something we should discuss between ourselves with the MHP. We are continuing our local election preparations as if there is no alliance,” he said.

“I believe President Erdoğan will make a statement in the following days,” said Özhaseki.