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Turkey: MHP leader rules out being coalition partner

Nationalist Movement Party leader Bahceli says ready to be main opposition in three-way coalition sans MHP

08.06.2015 - Update : 08.06.2015
Turkey: MHP leader rules out being coalition partner

ANKARA 

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli has ruled out being part of a coalition after Turkey's 25th parliamentary election produced no majority government.

Delivering a message from MHP headquarters in Ankara early Monday, Bahceli said, "MHP is ready to be a main opposition party in a possible AK Party - CHP - HDP coalition.

"Nobody has a right to drag Turkey into [AK Party] minority and some circles' scenarios," said Bahceli. "Snap election will happen whenever it will happen," he added.

Sunday’s election marked the AK Party’s losing majority government, which it has held for over a decade in three terms.

After it became clear there would be no single-party government, Bahceli appeared in front of the press and laid out possible coalition scenarios.

Bahceli said: "The President should tend towards the chairman of the party with the highest votes to kick start the formation of a government, which is Ahmet Davutoglu of the AK Party.

"It is wrong to force the country into faits accomplis such as 'this party should make a coalition government with that party' before Davutoglu starts to work on it," Bahceli said.

The MHP’s leader said a possible coalition should be one that has a chance of creating "harmony".

"The AK Party has been seeking this harmony with the solution process and maintained it since the Oslo talks," Bahceli said, referring the controversial 'Oslo talks' in the Norwegian capital in 2009-2011 to settle the decades-long armed conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"One part of this solution process is now in the Turkish parliament with 79 delegates. That means the first coalition should be between the AK Party and the HDP," Bahceli said.

Headed by Devlet Bahceli, the nationalist MHP has pledged before the elections to secure better conditions for public sector workers and pensioners as well as to fight corruption and lift parliamentary immunity.

The party has also said it would reverse the “solution process” initiated by the AK Party to end the Kurdish conflict and take a tough stance on terrorism and defeat Kurdish separatists.

Another possibility is the AK Party - CHP - HDP coalition, made up of parties promising enhanced freedoms, Bahceli said.

He pointed out that the coalition calculi would yield as many as 469 deputies if it becomes a three-way majority, while it would offer 337 MPs to the government if the AK Party and the HDP join powers.

Bahceli also said his party added two-thirds more deputies compared to the 2011 parliamentary election, in which the MHP only secured 13 percent of the votes and 53 seats.

According to the unofficial results, Turkey's AK Party won its fourth consecutive general election Sunday but failed to gain the majority needed to form a government.

The party, which came to power in 2002 before winning elections in 2007 and 2011, secured 40.81 percent of the vote with 99.97 percent of ballots counted, giving the party 258 seats in the Grand National Assembly -- 18 short of a simple majority.

The second-placed Republican People’s Party (CHP) secured 25.00 percent of vote to take 132 seats while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) gained 16.33 percent to gain 81 seats.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) passed the 10 percent threshold with 13.07 percent of the vote to take 79 seats -- the first time it will enter parliament as a party.

The turnout was 86.47 percent.

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