Devlet Bahçeli

Devlet Bahçeli (born 1 January 1948) is a Turkish politician and economist who is the current chairman of the far-right, ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Bahçeli has been described as a kingmaker in Turkish politics. An academic in economics from Gazi University, Bahçeli is a founder of the Grey Wolves, and was elected as the chairman of the MHP in the first congress held after the death of Alparslan Türkeş in 1997. He entered Grand National Assembly for the first time in the 1999 general election as a deputy from Osmaniye, taking part as deputy prime minister in the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition between 1999 and 2002, and ultimately brought the government down. He resigned from his position as chairman when his party fell below the 10% electoral threshold in the 2002 general election, but was re-elected chairman in the 2003 congress. Bahçeli and his party have been serving in the Grand National Assembly since regaining their seats in parliament in the 2007 general election. Bahçeli was initially a fierce critic of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan throughout the 2000s and 2010s until an intra-party crisis occurred following the MHP's poor performance in the November 2015 general election. With Bahçeli's newfound closeness to Erdoğan after the crisis, a schism occurred in his party which culminated in Meral Akşener founding the Good Party in 2017. Bahçeli formed an electoral alliance with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) called the People's Alliance for the 2018 general election and maintained this alliance in the 2019 local elections. The MHP currently supports president Erdoğan's cabinet with confidence and supply in the Grand National Assembly.