Sabah, Turkey
Feb 9 2007
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would become the third largest party
in parliament
Turkey’s far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would become the
third largest party in parliament after this year’s election, a
survey published on Friday showed.
The poll, conducted by Selcuk University in the central city
of Konya and carried in several newspapers, showed the ruling AK
Party would again be the largest party with 31.6 percent. The
MHP would win 14.2 percent, the poll showed.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP),
nominally left-leaning but also nationalist-minded, would win
15.5 percent in the election, which must be held by November.
Only parties with more than 10 percent can enter parliament.
The MHP is not represented in the current parliament.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party has presided over
strong economic growth and the launch of Turkey’s European Union
entry talks since taking power in November 2002, but analysts say the
more nationalist mood is now forcing it to shelve
liberal political reforms and some planned privatisations.
If the AK Party fails to win an outright majority in the
2007 election, it will have to form a coalition, possibly with
one of the smaller nationalist parties — a move sure to further
complicate Ankara’s already troubled relations with the EU.
Friday’s poll also showed more than half of Turks are
opposed to the scrapping of a law which makes it a crime to
insult Turkish national identity or state institutions.
The EU has sharply criticised Article 301, which has
triggered court cases against dozens of writers including Nobel
Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink.
An ultra-nationalist youth shot Dink dead outside his
newspaper office in Istanbul last month. About 100,000 people
attended his funeral to protest against violent nationalism.
Friday’s poll, mirroring the findings of other recent
surveys, showed a majority of voters who support the AK Party donot
want Erdogan to run for the presidency when incumbent AhmetNecdet
Sezer retires in May.
It gave no reason, but many think the AK Party will lose
votes if Erdogan, their main electoral asset, quits. As
president he would have to stay above party politics.
The poll showed Erdogan remained the single most popular
candidate to replace Sezer, with 17.1 percent support, but he
was only narrowly ahead of Bulent Arinc, the speaker of
parliament and also from the AK Party, who had 16.8 percent.
Both Erdogan and Arinc are unacceptable to Turkey’s secular
establishment, including the powerful military, because of their
roots in political Islam. Their wives wear the Muslim headscarf.
The poll canvassed the views of 7,325 people in 43 cities.