BBP leader voices support for AKP-MHP alliance
ISTANBUL
Great Union Party (BBP) leader Mustafa Destici said they support the pre-election alliance between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.
“We have made it clear since the beginning that we would support and join the alliance. For now, everything is going well for us to be in the alliance,” he said in an interview with private broadcaster CNN Türk late on Feb. 20.
“We act based on our country’s interests; nothing else, and I believe this alliance will be beneficial for Turkey,” Destici said.
When asked if they had reached a deal with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Destici did not give any details and said everything has gone well for them to join the alliance, calling on the Saadet Partisi [Felicity Party] to join it as well.
Destici also added they would not have a problem with recognizing Erdoğan’s candidacy in the 2019 elections.
“If we call it an ‘alliance,’ of course we will have a common candidate. It would be unrealistic to be in the alliance and come up with another candidate,” he said.
The pre-election alliance to be formed by the AKP and MHP will be called the “People’s Alliance,” Erdoğan said on Feb. 20.
A 26-article legislative package preparing the legal basis for a pre-election alliance and changes in regulations in election procedures will be submitted to the Parliament Speaker’s Office on Feb. 21.
The legislative package includes provisions that will allow political parties to enter into elections as an alliance, while keeping their political party emblem on ballot papers and maintaining the 10 percent electoral threshold.
Turkey will hold joint parliamentary and presidential elections in 2019, with the AKP and the MHP heralding Erdoğan as their joint candidate in the vote for the position of president. After the vote, a constitutional amendment shifting Turkey to an executive presidential system will fully go into effect.
