MHP to announce local election nominees for 2014 on Sunday

ANKARA

With six months left to the local elections, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is set to announce the majority of its mayoral candidates at a meeting to be held on Sept. 29, Anadolu Agency has reported.
MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli is expected to introduce the party’s 220 candidates, including those for Ankara, Adana, Mersin and Aydın, the agency said, adding that the MHP’s nominee for Ankara will be Mevlüt Karakaya, deputy leader of the party.

Efforts to determine the party’s Istanbul and İzmir mayoral candidates are still underway. The MHP has been conducting public opinion polls in 81 towns to determine the best candidate for each city and province. Karakaya is a professor of economics and served as an academic before getting into politics. He is currently the MHP’s deputy leader, responsible for the economy.

In the meantime, the MHP’s former Ankara candidate Mansur Yavaş is in talks with the ultra-nationalist Great Union Party (BBP) for the local elections, a senior BBP official said. “Yavaş’s joining will further strengthen us,” Hasan Hüseyin Bozok, deputy leader of the BBP said.