AKMHP (11.12.2016)

I have never used such a short Claw Mark headline. But, I am sure you will agree it is a good headline for summing up the current state of affairs.
We have witnessed an MHP – AKP flirtation for months.

They need the votes of 14 MPs from the MHP in order to amend the constitution and create an office in which Tayyip Erdoğan will be named “president” but will actually be “head”.
Perhaps, under other conditions, the MHP could have engaged in hard political negotiations and have come away with a “basket of compromises” offering far more than the AKP’s sole person who gets to decide.

However, cast your mind back a few months to when there emerged from the ranks of the MHP first one MP, and then three more, who questioned Devlet Bahçeli’s status as great leader whose decisions were beyond question and, moreover, were capable of saying that his ability to run the party left a lot to be desired, and they set their sights on the party chairship. Those to rebel were Meral Akşener, who had gained renown as a latter-day she-wolf Asena in the vicinity of Kocaeli, Sinan Oğan from the vicinity of Kars – Ardahan, Ümit Özdağ who inherited his MHP connections from his father, and Koray Aydın who may not have stood a chance but gave it a go, anyway.
We witnessed a peculiar race (race?) for the MHP chairship. The four politicians, each of whom had declared their candidacy for the party chairship, acted in consort. Each one of them influenced their own delegates to the congress that Bahçeli wanted to prevent and, as a result, secured a majority of the congress delegates so that, while it was uncertain who would be elected, this was more or less certain not be Bahçeli.

With his unseating imminent, the “Beştepe Palace” rushed in to the aid of Devlet Bahçeli and his team. Plans to hold the congress were frustrated through recourse to the independent (independent?) judicial branch. Then, in any case, the period known as the state of emergency started in which the law was put on hold. The candidates for party chair who had dared to oppose Bahçeli and had made considerable headway were either purged from the party or rendered ineffective. I did not keep track of who was thrown out of the party and who was not. I did not feel the need, actually. What was clear was that the palace had stepped in to save Bahçeli’s bacon.
But this must have come with a price tag.

It did indeed.
For months, we have followed the MHP - AKP flirtation over the amendment to the constitution that would make Erdoğan head in the guise of president.

When they could have made a beeline for it, I have no idea why they toyed with us to this extent.
I suspect that they were engaging in a political manoeuvre that old-timers call “face saving”. They wanted to create the impression that the MHP had been debating the nitty-gritty of the constitutional amendment, was unwilling to compromise and was giving Erdoğan and his team a tough time.
At the time I penned these lines, the constitutional amendment proposal had yet to be submitted to parliament. This is a matter of a few hours. By the time you read this article, the details of this amendment will be officially known. However. I suspect the details that have been leaked so far permit me to make the following pronouncement:
Erdoğan got everything he wanted.

In other words, the MHP gave Erdoğan everything he wanted.
And this is precisely why I chose the shortest Claw Mark headline of all time:
AKMHP!

***

So, what happens now?

Zilch!
Unless there is a road accident, which does not look likely, Erdoğan’s dream will come true and he will become head of this country.

Only the credulous will be taken in at his name being President rather than Head; this in turn will facilitate the AKP policy merchants in their demagogy that “He is President and not Head.”
Either immediately, or after 2019, a few MHP people will be included in the government to be ‘headed’ by Erdoğan. Perhaps Devlet Bahçeli will be honoured with a title like ‘Deputy Head”.
But however you dress it up, this will not alter the AKMHP reality.

AYDIN ENGİN