President Erdoğan, MHP leader Bahçeli meet for first time after polls

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) chair Devlet Bahçeli met for their first in-person meeting after the June 24 polls in which their “People’s Alliance” won a parliamentary majority.

The two leaders met at the presidential complex on June 27 for less than one hour, as sources said they discussed the election results, the establishment of the new executive presidential system and the alliance’s future in the new parliament.

Erdoğan was re-elected in the first round of presidential elections on June 24 with 52.6 percent of the votes, but his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the majority in parliament after winning only 42.4 percent of the votes.

But the “People’s Alliance,” formed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the MHP, managed to regain the majority, by securing a comfortable majority with 344 seats in parliament - 295 seats for the AKP and 49 for the MHP.

The reflection of the AKP-MHP alliance on to the parliamentary process and the new cabinet are under focus, as MHP officials have been voicing their expectation to have positions in Erdoğan’s government.

“Our cadres are ready,” MHP deputy leader Mustafa Kalaycı told daily Milliyet on June 27.

“But it is never a subject of bargaining. The authority and decision is of the president’s,” he added.

Meanwhile, Bahçeli has dismissed MHP’s newly elected lawmaker Sefer Aycan, who had said Bahçeli “saved” Erdoğan and the MHP “will be able to do whatever it wants in the new parliament.”

“The MHP is in a critical position at the parliament and the MHP’s chair saved both Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP,” Aycan said on June 26 during his visit to the southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş, from where he was elected as a lawmaker according to initial results.

Aycan also claimed that “all MHP voters obeyed the order of the chairman and voted for Erdoğan.”

Bahçeli dismissed Aycan because of his statements on June 27 on grounds that the comments “harms the alliance spirit,” daily Habertürk reported.

Aycan reportedly said he was not informed about Bahçeli’s decision to fire him.