Turkey now has a full-fledged MHP issue

For some time, Bahçeli has been attending meetings of the MHP's provincial branches, shouting at the top of his lungs and delivering speeches decorated with heavy insults, going far beyond the limits of criticism, about the process and those who lend support to it, and he does this with a face that changes shape and color as he speaks, turning red hot. That on top of the gestures he uses remind one of the black-and-white documentaries on Hitler and Mussolini. On the days he does not deliver such speeches, he opts to issue written statements as if everyone anxiously awaits his words.

However, the main characteristic of these written statements is the same furiousness, the same harshness and the same lack of observance of any limits in his insults. This nasty style which I find hardly befitting Bahçeli, whom I have known so far as a statesman, has created in me the impression that Bahçeli and the MHP can no longer produce politics, and for this reason, they have shifted their opposition from politics, which is the art of producing alternatives, to threats, blackmail and non-political methods. Otherwise, would a reasonable party be so heedless as to threaten the government seeking to settle the country's most important issue, threatening to revolt and go to the mountains or to declare the most fundamental state organs as illegitimate or to accuse the head of state as well as the elected leaders of betraying the country?

But for whatever reason, Bahçeli and the MHP have started to do all these. Bahçeli did not break with his tradition of insulting the people who initiated the process to settle the Kurdish issue. Have a look at the following words he uses about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who called on the MHP to substantiate its claim that the process is a US project: "Prime Minister Erdoğan's worthless statements and immoral attacks against the MHP are the reflections of a state of mind moving convulsively in a marsh of delusions. The prime minister and his government, whose political records and tendencies with respect to ethnic separatism are well known, were caught red handed in the voyage of heedlessness and betrayal that they set off to implement. Their projects to separate and divide Turkey with the help of İmralı, Kandil and [Massoud] Barzani and their true motives have begun to be revealed. Statements by US officials, Barzani and [Jalal] Talabani have proven that this project is required by the strategic calculations of the US. Lofty concepts such as honor and dignity lose their value in the mouths that do not deserve them. We hereby remind the prime minister of this fact, for he is overstepping the line, making promises he cannot keep and conducting his politics in a pit."

In a written statement released on Friday, Bahçeli frantically declared the National Security Council (MGK), which the MHP traditionally regards as a sacred institution, illegitimate and has been waging a war against the state in the form of a war waged against the MGK and the president. The following is from this statement: "The MGK is a constitutional institution established by a law that specifies its duties, powers and responsibilities. However, it is unacceptable for this institution to make radical and permanent recommendations that will undermine the survival of the state and the nation and to call this state policy. The state is the nation's organization progressing from the past to the future. The periodical interpretations from the rulers and public servants who have a say during part of this process cannot be called state policies. The fact that a matter is advocated by the president and the prime minister and that it is discussed at the MGK does not make that matter national or legitimate. Indeed, the Armistice of Mudros, which put our nation in captivity, was implemented with the consent of the state administration. This is one of the bitterest truths."

Bahçeli likened the MGK decision, which lends support to the democratic initiative process launched to settle the Kurdish issue, to the Armistice of Mudros, which paved the way for the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat in World War I. A statement issued by the Çankaya presidential palace brought to the surface the tension between Bahçeli -- whose first name, Devlet, ironically means "state" in Turkish -- and the state. The statement, issued by the Presidency on Friday, reacted strongly to Bahçeli's analogy to the Armistice of Mudros: "It is known to the general public that MGK meetings are confidential. The statement issued today against the MGK and its distinguished members without having any information about the content of a presentation made during the MGK meeting and about the views and recommendations voiced by distinguished MGK members about the limits and direction of the work about this matter is found to be unbecoming."