Bahçeli to run for another term as MHP leader

ANKARA

Devlet Bahçeli, the chair of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has announced that he will run for the party’s leadership at the MHP’s general convention in March.

“If you accept, if you want me to continue to serve for our cause, I am going to be a candidate for leadership at the general convention to take place on March 18,” Bahçeli said after a meeting of the MHP’s top executive body late Feb. 10.

Bahçeli was first elected as the chair of the MHP in mid-1997 after the founder of the nationalist party, Alparslan Türkeş, died in April 1997. Bahçeli had served as a deputy prime minister between 1999 and 2002 in a three-party coalition.

He recently established the People’s Alliance with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and became President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main political ally. He supported Erdoğan’s candidacy for presidency in 2018 and has recently announced that they will do the same in the upcoming elections.

“The establishment of the People’s Alliance has given a new impulse to the Turkish politics and flourished national thrills,” Bahçeli said.

At the meeting, Bahçeli said the MHP endorses the AKP’s call for a brand-new constitution and suggested that the structure of the Constitutional Court should be completely amended by the new charter.