Nationalist party leader targets HDP again: Closing it is a duty of honor

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli spoke at the 13th Ordinary Grand Meeting of the MHP in Ankara today (March 18).

Addressing a series of issues on Turkey's agenda, he also talked about the closure case filed by the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation against the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) yesterday.

CLICK - Closure case against HDP, political ban request for 687 people

Bahçeli, the leader of the MHP, which is in the People's Alliance with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has long been targeting the HDP, calling on the relevant authorities to file a closure case against the party.

In today's speech, he has once again targeted the HDP and said: "HDP is a criminal organization under a political disguise. It is a duty of honor to history and next generations to ensure that it is closed to never open again under another name. It is a matter of right, law and justice that the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation has sent its indictment for closure of the HDP to the Constitutional Court."

CLICK - Bahçeli calls on top courts to close HDP

MHP Chair Bahçeli has also referred to the requests of opposition parties' to return to the Parliamentary System from the current Presidential Government System, which has been in effect in Turkey since 2018.

"Proposals for a reinforced parliamentary system is a return to the old; it is the pathetic agony of the ones who do not have anything to say about the future," Bahçeli has said and added: "There is no return to the Parliamentary system. The Presidential Government System must be deeply established and reinforced with political, judicial and economic reforms."

What happened?

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, with his prison sentence of 2 years, 6 months upheld by the Court of Cassation, has been stripped of his MP status after the final ruling of the court was read out at the Plenary Session of the Parliament on March 17.

Shortly afterwards, the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation has filed a closure case against the HDP by appealing to the Constitutional Court. In the indictment prepared by Chief Public Prosecutor Şahin, there is also a request for political ban on 697 HDP politicians.

In the event that the Constitutional Court concludes that the related people, with their statements and actions, have caused the total closure of the party, they shall not be the founder, member, executive or inspector of another political party for five years starting from the day when the top court's detailed ruling of party closure is published in the Official Gazette.

(DŞ/SD)