AKP and MHP may cooperate in elections too

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) may cooperate in the next parliamentary elections, a key political figure who asked not to be named has told the Hürriyet Daily News. Such an agreement would be similar to their cooperation forged in the April 16 referendum for a constitutional shift to an executive presidential system, and the same source also said officials from the two parties spoke about such a possibility during their first contact for the referendum campaign.

It was not possible to get an official confirmation from either of the parties for such a project. The next parliamentary elections are not scheduled to take place until November 2019 anyway. 

Turkish election law does not allow election alliances between parties, but that never stopped parties from engaging in election cooperation in the past. In the 1991 elections, in order to get over the 10 percent national threshold, candidates from the Nationalist Labor Party (MÇP), a predecessor of the MHP, entered elections on the Islamic-conservative Welfare Party (RP) ticket. After taking their oaths in parliament the MÇP members resigned from the RP and set up a separate MÇP group in parliament after taking their oaths. 

Similarly, also in the 1991 election candidates from the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Labor Party (HEP), the predecessor of today's Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), entered the election on the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP) ticket. They also resigned and set up their own parliamentary group after getting over the 10 percent threshold.

In the next election the MHP - riven by internal problems - faces the possibility of dropping below the 10 percent threshold. The MHP won around 12...