What does the future hold for Turkey’s nationalists?

KEMAL CAN / HİLMİ HACALOĞLU

Milliyet

MHP founder Alparslan Türkeş was the most prominent figure of the nationalist movement in Turkey since the 1960s.

Eleven years ago, Turkey’s conservative Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, won a surprising election victory that lifted it into a coalition government with the then-ruling party. Today, following a poor showing in the Sept. 12 constitutional referendum, the party’s relevance is again a subject of heated political debate.

The nationalists and the MHP have been an influential force in Turkish politics since the early 1960s. Party founder Alparslan Türkeş, referred to by the nationalists as “başbuğ” (commander), was one of the early leaders of the May 27, 1960, military coup as a young colonel. Türkeş, who was court-martialed in 1945 on later-dismissed charges of “fascist and racist activities,” was expelled by an internal coup within the junta. He later joined the Republican Peasants’ Nation Party, or CKMP, and was elected its chairman. In 1969 the CKMP was renamed the MHP.

Türkeş took the rightist attitudes of predecessors such as Nihal Atsız, who is known for his explicitly racist views, and transformed them into a powerful political force. In 1965, Türkeş released a political pamphlet titled “Dokuz Işık Doktrini” (The Nine Lights Doctrine) listing nine basic principles that formed the core of the main nationalist ideology in Turkey: nationalism, idealism, moralism, societalism, scientism, independentism, ruralism, progressivism, populism, industrialism, and technologism.

Türkeş and the MHP also led the anti-communist vanguard in Turkey. Members of the party and its youth organization were heavily involved in the street clashes that were used as an excuse for the 1980 military coup. The MHP was shut down by the coup leaders and party executives, including Türkeş, faced trial.

Türkeş was kept under arrest for more than four years but was later acquitted and returned to politics. He was elected as a deputy in the 1991 elections, but the MHP failed to surpass the 10 percent electoral threshold in the next general elections, held in 1995.

Two years after Türkeş’ death, following a period of internal fights and conventions that threatened to tear the MHP apart, even party supporters did not expect much from the April 18, 1999, general elections. But under new leader Devlet Bahçeli, the MHP won an unexpected 18 percent of the votes, second only to Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party, or DSP.

The election boosted the importance of the MHP and its “ülkücü” (party traditionalists) in the political equation. But when the party failed to meet the 10 percent election threshold for parliamentary representation in 2002, people asked: “Where did the MHP ülkücü go?” and even “Is the MHP finished?” Many believed the country’s political actors and priorities were changing, leaving the MHP behind. In the July 22, 2007, general elections, though, the party topped 10 percent again, joining the winning Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, in Parliament.

Challenges to the MHP’s relevance re-emerged following September’s constitutional referendum, in which the party failed to get the “no” votes it sought in many of its typically loyal precincts. Chairman Bahçeli, under fire for moving the party away from its grassroots, accused actors “from across the Atlantic” of plotting to destroy the MHP.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who lobbied hard for a “yes” vote, thanked the “independent ülkücü” who voted in favor of the amendments, while the CHP, which also opposed the changes, questioned the MHP’s contribution to the “no” campaign. In the wake of the elections, many columnists have suggested new strategies for the MHP to make an “appropriate change.” The question “Is it over?” is on many people’s lips once again.

As the 2011 general elections approach, how the MHP’s traditional supporters will vote is a question of keen interest to all political parties. How deeply were the ülkücü affected by the referendum loss? Do they believe the solution to the party’s woes lies in change or in going back to its roots? Will they take to the streets again? Is the MHP in its death throes, or simply preparing for another resurrection? Are its areas of support within the country shifting? What advantages does the party hold and what challenges does it face going into the election?

To find out how MHP members would answer these and other key questions, daily Milliyet reporters Kemal Can and Hilmi Hacaloğlu visited 15 cities across the country to interview more than 100 people, from party administrators at the MHP headquarters to workers in the cafeteria, from academics to ordinary supporters. What they learned sheds light on how the ülkücü perceive the ongoing discussions about their party and what they themselves are saying about the future of the MHP.