CHP leader thinks about allying with ultra-nationalists or Islamists

A pro-AKP journalist reports that the main opposition party CHP’s leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu seems to give green light to establish electoral alliances with ultra-nationalists or Islamists
Wednesday, 28 February 2018 21:12

Parliamentary main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said there could be an "alliance of principles" for the upcoming 2019 elections, for which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are endorsing the candidacy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and pushing for a legislative amendment allowing pre-election alliances. 

Abdülkadir Selvi, a pro-AKP journalist, on February 28 reports in his article over the main opposition leader Kılıçdaroğlu's interview with journalists. 

Selvi wrote that he had asked first about how Kılıçdaroğlu looks for potential alliances with İyi ("Good") Party, launched by the former interior minister and ultra-nationalist politician Meral Akşener in 2017, and Islamist Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party). 

"It can surely happen. Potential principles could be determined; if there is a unity in line with those principles, [the alliance] will be formed based on those principles," Kılıçdaroğlu said.

Kılıçdaroğlu on parliament elections replies by "it is still too early to talk about that".  He also states that "every political party will be promoting its own candidate for presidential elections".

POSSIBLE CHP- HDP ALLIANCE

According to the Selvi, against his questioning on a potential CHP-HDP (pro-Kurdish party) alliance, Kılıçdaroğlu makes it clear that they "demand every political party to enter elections independently, with a certain arrangement on the election threshold".

However, in August 2017, in response to a question about whether he would consider forming an alliance with the pro-Kurdish HDP party or ultra-nationalist Meral Akşener's party for the 2019 presidential elections, Kılıçdaroğlu said that he might consider. "It is not a matter of left and right, but it is a matter of our society’s future, our children's future", he had said.

Zeki Kılıçaslan from the CHP on February 27 talked to CNN Türk and said, "If required, if it is in favour of the people and nation, an alliance can be built with the HDP," adding that his party distinguishes terror from the Kurdish question.

In an interview with soL on January 31, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), Kemal Okuyan said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hit two birds with one stone by means of Afrin operation in Syria. "Erdoğan also unsettled a coalition against him getting organized for 2019. There is the operation of Afrin between CHP and pro-Kurdish HDP. Just a week ago CHP had announced such a coalition in its congresses. Well, they can all forget about these since we are talking about the bourgeois politics," Okuyan said. 

As Selvi reports, Kılıçdaroğlu directed criticism on the recently arranged election system which allows political parties with a small percentage of votes to enter the parliament under the shelter of popular political parties.

A FASCIST FIGURE: MERAL AKŞENER

Nowadays, Akşener is promoted as a "saviour" against Erdoğan’s model despite her infamous political career. Just like the recent past’s manoeuvre of nominating Islamist candidates against AKP party, ultranationalist Akşener emerges as a new version of the "challenge" to Erdoğan. Akşener, 61, was a member of the fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) until she was expelled in September 2016.

Akşener first entered parliament after the 1995 general election, at a time when deep instability plagued the country as fighting with Kurdish militants reached its bloody peak. She served as interior minister for less than a year between 1996 and 1997.

ERDOĞAN'S AKP AND FELICITY PARY ORIGINATED IN THE SAME PARTY

Islamist Felicity Party was founded on 20 July 2001 after the Virtue Party (FP) was banned by the Constitutional Court. While the party's reformist wing formed the AKP party, the hardliners founded the Felicity Party. Both parties originated in the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), the party of Islamist ex-politician Necmettin Erbakan.

Felicity Party leader in January paid a courtesy call to CHP to discuss upcoming legal changes in election and political party laws amid discussions on alliances for next year’s presidential race.