ANKARA
Turkey’s opposition Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, has announced its final list of candidates for June's elections.
The list was submitted to Turkey's Supreme Election Board on Tuesday weeks after MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, declared the MHP would not form a coalition with other opposition parties.
Notable MHP candidates are Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the former diplomat and ex-Secretary of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) who ran against current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's first presidential election last year, and the former head of the Central Bank of Turkey, Durmus Yilmaz, who also served as an economic advisor under former Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
An offer by Mustafa Kamalak, the leader of Turkey’s other right-wing party, the Felicity Party, or SP, who had suggested forming a joint candidature, was rejected by the MHP.
Joint candidature
The SP has previously said they wished to present a joint candidate list with other opposition parties which would provide a "strong sounding for the views of minorities in the country" at the general elections.
Kamalak, the far-right the Grand Union Party, or BBP, and Nation and Justice Party, or MP, a conservative and nationalistic political party, agreed to run jointly for the upcoming elections.
The MHP won 71 seats in parliament with 14.27 percent of the vote in the 2011 general elections, while the SP got 1.24 percent and the BBP gained less than one percent.
The Islamist Kurdish political party Free Cause Party, or HUDA-PAR, will also run as a single party.
Final list
About 56 million Turkish citizens will vote on June 7 in the country's 25th general elections to elect the 550 members of parliament.
A total of 54,812,423 people are registered to vote in Turkey while 1,103,258 people will be able to cast their votes outside the country.
Parties wishing to participate in the elections provided the Supreme Election Board with a list of MP candidates on April 7.
The Supreme Election Board will announce the final registered list on April 24.
The elections in Turkey will start on June 7 at 08:00 a.m. (0600GMT) and finish at 17:00 p.m. (1500GMT).
Turkish nationals living abroad will be able to cast their votes between May 8 and May 31.
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