Nationalist Movement Party

History

Before 1980

In 1965, nationalist politician and ex-Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, who had trained in the United States for NATO, founded the Turkish Gladio Special Warfare Department, gained control of the conservative rural Republican Villagers Nation Party (, CKMP). During an Extraordinary Great Congress held at Adana in Turkey on 1969, Türkeş changed the name of the party to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and with the support of Dündar Taşer, a party logo depicting the three crescent was elected.

The MHP embraced Turkish nationalism, and under the leadership of Türkeş, militias connected to the party were responsible for assassinating numerous left-wing intellectuals and academics, including some Kurds, during the 1970s. The leader of the party's youth wing, known as the Grey Wolves after Turkic mythology, claimed that they had an intelligence organization that was superior to the state's own.

On the other hand, MHP had links to the Aydınlar Ocağı (AO; "Hearth of Intellectuals"), a right-wing think tank launched in 1970 by established university professors, which served as a connecting link between secular-conservative, nationalist and Islamic rightists, promoting the ideology of Turkish-Islamic synthesis. AO's ideas, which have been compared to those of the French Nouvelle Droite, had a determining influence on MHP's programmes and served to lend the far-right party a more legitimate, respectable appearance.

The MHP won enough seats in the 1973 and 1977 general election to take part in the "Nationalist Front" governments during the 1970s. The party infiltrated the bureaucracy during these governments during the height of the political violence between rightists and leftists. On 27 May 1980, the party's deputy leader and former government minister Gün Sazak was assassinated by members of the Marxist–Leninist militant group Revolutionary Left ( or Dev Sol) in front of his home.

When the Turkish army seized power on 12 September 1980, in a violent coup d'état led by General Kenan Evren, the party was banned, along with all other active political parties at the time, and many of its leading members were imprisoned. Many party members joined the liberal conservative Motherland Party or various Islamist parties. Party member, Agah Oktay Güner, noted that the party's ideology was in power while its members were in prison.

Re-establishment

The party was reformed in 1983 under the name "Conservative Party" (). After 1985, however, the name was changed to the "Nationalist Task Party" () then back again to its former name in 1992. In 1993, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu and five other deputies separated and founded the Great Union Party, which is an Islamist party.

Devlet Bahçeli

After Türkeş's death, Devlet Bahçeli was elected his successor. The party won 18% of the vote and 129 seats in the election that followed, in 1999, its best ever result. Bahçeli subsequently became Deputy Prime Minister after entering a coalition with the Democratic Left Party (DSP) and the Motherland Party (ANAP), though his calls for an early election resulted in the government's collapse in 2002. In the subsequent 2002 general election, the MHP fell below the 10% election threshold and lost all of its parliamentary representation after the newly formed Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a plurality.

After the 2007 general election, in which the MHP won back its parliamentary representation with 14.27% of the vote, the party has strongly opposed the peace negotiations between the government and the Kurdistan Workers Party and used to be fiercely critical of the governing AKP over government corruption and authoritarianism. Nevertheless, the MHP has often been referred to by critics as the "AKP's lifeline", having covertly helped the AKP in situations such as the 2007 presidential election, repealing the headscarf ban, and the June–July 2015 parliamentary speaker elections. Since 2015, Bahçeli has been openly supporting Erdogan and the AKP. This caused a schism within the party, resulting in Meral Akşener leaving MHP to found the center-right İYİ Party. The MHP supported a 'Yes' vote in the 2017 referendum, and formed the People's Alliance electoral pact with the AKP for the 2018 Turkish general election. MHP currently supports a minority government led by the AKP, and has 48 MPs in the Turkish Parliament.

Ideology

The MHP represents the Nine-Light doctrine, based on ultranationalism shaped by Islam. The MHP is widely described as a neo-fascist party. Since the 1990s it has, under the leadership of Devlet Bahçeli, gradually moderated its programme, turning from ethnic to cultural nationalism and conservatism and stressing the unitary nature of the Turkish state. MHP's mainstream overture has strongly increased its appeal to voters and it has grown to the country's third-strongest party, continuously represented in the National Assembly since 2007 with voter shares well above the 10% threshold. The party has also been described as following the ideology of Islamokemalism and espousing Turkish–Islamic nationalism.

Opposition to the HDP

In early 2025, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli engaged in unprecedented dialogue with the Kurdish-oriented DEM Party, a successor to the HDP, following a call for peace from imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. This initiative led to a ceasefire declaration by the PKK in March 2025. However, Bahçeli has consistently rejected any association with the HDP. He has reiterated calls for the HDP's closure, viewing the party's activities as incompatible with national unity.

Economic policies

During the June 2015 Turkish general election, the MHP announced a new economic manifesto. The MHP promised to improve the situation of Turkey's working poor by lifting taxes on diesel and fertiliser, raising the net minimum wage to $518, giving a $37 transportation subsidy to every minimum wage worker, and giving those who cannot afford a house an additional $92 per month in rental aid. The MHP said these policies would allow a minimum wage earner living in a big city to earn as much an extra $646 annually.

The MHP stated that their economic policies would create 700,000 jobs, increase the national income per person to $13.3K, and increase exports to $238 billion while keeping annual growth at 5.2 percent between 2016 and 2019, although this did not occur, as the GDP per capita and standard of living plummeted in Turkey from 12,614 USD in 2014 to 9,126 in 2019.

Controversies

In July 2015, amidst a wave of protests against the Xinjiang conflict, MHP-affiliated Ülkücü attacked South Korean tourists on Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square. In an interview with Turkish columnist Ahmet Hakan, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli played the attacks down, stating that "These are young kids. They may have been provoked. Plus, how are you going to differentiate between Korean and Chinese? They both have slanted eyes. Does it really matter?" Bahceli's remarks, including a banner reading "We crave Chinese blood" at the Ülkücü Istanbul headquarters, caused an uproar in both Turkish and international media.

Party leaders

Election results

General elections

Senate elections

Local elections

References

References

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