MHP lashes out at ‘fooled’ comments by former deputy

ISTANBUL

DHA photo

Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has hit back at former deputy and former Central Bank Gov. Durmuş Yılmaz after the latter said 80 percent of the party’s supporters would defy the MHP leadership to vote against proposed charter amendments in an upcoming referendum because they “feel they have been fooled.”

MHP Deputy Chair Emin Haluk Ayhan asked Yılmaz to make an explanation, arguing that his claims were baseless.

In an interview with daily BirGün, Yılmaz said that when he spoke with members of the MHP electorate, he said he sensed that “they feel as though they were fooled.” 

“I feel fooled as well. In the June 7 and Nov. 1 [2015] elections, I visited village after village, town after town. But what is happening now is exactly what we have proclaimed in our election manifesto. And people tell me, ‘You came to our village and said these things, but now you are doing the opposite.’ Now I do not have any response to give to those people. I am in a very tough situation,” said Yılmaz. 

The MHP has formed an alliance with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is the main promoter of the charter amendments that will usher in a greater role for the president in the Turkish political system, ahead of an April 16 referendum. 

After the MHP leadership entered the alliance with the AKP, dissident members of the party, who have previously voiced their opposition to the leadership of Devlet Bahçeli as head of the MHP, have announced that they will conduct their own initiatives to promote a “no” vote in the referendum on the grounds that the changes conflict with the core values of the party.