Nationalist Movement Party

Nationalist Movement Party Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi
Leader	Devlet Bahçeli
Founder	Alparslan Türkeş
Slogan	Ses ver Türkiye (roughly, "Make Noise Turkey"
Founded	9 February, 1969
Headquarters	Ceyhun Atıf Kansu Caddesi No:128, Balgat - Ankara, Turkey
Ideology	Turkish Nationalism Ülkücülük [1] Pan Turkism
Political position	Far-right
Official colours	White, Red
Parliament:	53 / 550
Municipalities:	506 / 2,919
Website
Official Site
Politics of Turkey Political parties Elections

The Nationalist Movement Party (also translated as 'Nationalist Action Party') (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, abbreviated to MHP), is a far-right^[2][3] political party in Turkey.

In the 2002 general elections, the party had lost its 129 seats as it had won only 8.34% of the national vote (2,619,450 votes). In the 2007 general elections, the party won 14.29% of the national vote (5,004,003 votes) with 71 seats becoming the third political group in the parliament.^[4]

In the 2011 general elections, the party polled 13.01% (5,585,513 votes) and won 53 seats, remaining the third largest parliamentary group.

History

In 1965, nationalist politician Alparslan Türkeş gained control of the conservative rural Republican Villagers National Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyetçi Köylü Millet Partisi, CKMP). During an Extraordinary Great Congress held at Adana in Turkey on 8–9 February 1969, Türkeş changed the name of the party to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

When the Turkish army seized power on September 12, 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 neo-liberal Anavatan Partisi or various Islamist parties. Party member (Agâh Oktay Güner) noted that the party's ideology was in power while its members were in prison.

The party later was reformed in 1983 under the name of the Conservative Party (Turkish: Muhafazakar Parti). After 1985, however, the name was changed to the Nationalist Task Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Çalışma Partisi) then back again to its former name in 1992.^{[7][better source needed]} In 1993, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu and five other deputies separated and founded the Great Union Party, which is an ultra-nationalist Islamist party.^[7]

Election results

General Elections

Local Elections

References

1. ^ http://www.mhp.org.tr/kitaplar/mhp_parti_tuzugu_2009_opt.pdf
2. ^ Turkish far right on the rise, by Justin Huggler, The Independent, 20 April 1999
3. ^ Turkey and the EU. Will they Split before they Marry?, The Spiegel Online International, 10.03.2005
4. ^ Elections Turkey's Vote analysis and results with Turkish Daily News^{[dead link]}
5. ^ Desmond Fernandes and Iskender Ozden (Spring 2001). "United States and NATO inspired 'psychological warfare operations' against the 'Kurdish communist threat' in Turkey". Variant 2 (12): 10–16. http://www.variant.randomstate.org/pdfs/issue12/Fernandes.pdf. ^{[dead link]}
6. ^ Değer, M. Emin (1978) (in Turkish). CIA, Kontrgerilla ve Türkiye. Ankara: Kendi Yayını. p. 119. "MHP lideri Türkeş, Ülkü Ocaklarını meşru müdafaa yaptığını söyler. Ülkü Ocakları Genel Başkanı da, 'bizim istihbarat örgütümüz devletin örgütünden güçlüdür' demektedir."  Quoted in "Susurluk'ta bütün yollar, devlete uğrayarak CIA'ya çıkar" (in Turkish). Kurtuluş Yolu 4 (39). 2008-09-19. http://kurtulusyolu.org/gazete/tam_goster.php?fid=273. Retrieved 2008-11-04. 
7. ^ ^{a b} http://www.mhp.org.tr/mhp_tarihce.php
8. ^ http://www.belgenet.net/ayrinti.php?yil_id=12
9. ^ http://www.belgenet.net/ayrinti.php?yil_id=13
10. ^ http://www.belgenet.net/ayrinti.php?yil_id=14
11. ^ http://www.belgenet.net/ayrinti.php?yil_id=15
12. ^ http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/docs/Kararlar/2011Pdf/2011-1070.pdf

Further reading

• Başkan, Filiz (January 2006). "Globalization and Nationalism: The Nationalist Action Party of Turkey". Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 12 (1): 83–105. doi:10.1080/13537110500503877. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi

• Official Web site
• Official Site of Ulku Ocaklari (Turk-Islam idealists)
• Nationalist Movement Party Multimedya

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