Nationalist opposition to back Erdoğan in 2019

TURKEY’S nationalist opposition said on Monday it would back President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2019 election, signalling continued right-wing support crucial to his narrow victory in a constitutional referendum last year.

Turks will vote for both president and parliament next year.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the smallest of parliament’s four factions, backed the vote to grant Mr Erdoğan sweeping executive powers, helping it squeak by with a margin of 51.4 per cent.

“The MHP will not submit a presidential candidate,” MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli told a news conference. “The MHP will take a decision to support Erdoğan in the presidential elections.”

Mr Bahçeli has said he wants a reduction in the minimum 10 per cent vote required for a party to enter parliament.

Over the past two decades he has brought the MHP more towards the mainstream and away from its early reputation for ties to rightist street gangs.

The party is now looking to fend off a challenge from Meral Akşener, an ex-interior minister and prominent nationalist who last year founded her own party after breaking with the MHP.

One recent poll suggested that Ms Akşener’s party could eclipse the MHP and deprive it of the 10 per cent threshold.

Mr Bahçeli said the MHP would consider an alliance with Mr Erdoğan’s AK Party if such a request came from the AKP.

The MHP won as much as 18 per cent in the 1999 parliamentary election but slipped below the threshold with 9.5 per cent in 2002. It has exceeded 10 per cent in elections since and took 11.9 per cent in the November 2015 vote.