MHP leader’s advisor claims to have ‘list of 3,000 dishonorable people’

ISTANBUL

A day after Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader criticized the “dishonorable, whisky-drinking rich people” who voted for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) instead of the MHP, Bahçeli’s political advisor has said they had a “list of 3,000 dishonorable people.”

Metin Özkan, political advisor to MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, backed Bahçeli’s claim about “dishonorable people” voting for the HDP rather than the MHP just to single out the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from forming a single party government at the June 7 parliamentary election, by saying he had the list of the “dishonorable people.” 

The Turkish term for “dishonorable” (şerefsiz) carries a weight bordering on the vulgar that does not exist in English.

“Who are they? If you want I have a list of them in my bag but I should not open and read the [names] of 3,000 people. We may not have time,” Özkan said during a televised program with private broadcaster HaberTürk. 

“Those poor people who carried the HDP to the parliament [and] those dishonorable people sipping their whiskies in their seaside residences along the Bosphorus… Now go and form a coalition with the HDP,” Bahceli had told his party during an address over the weekend. 

Bahçeli slammed rich segments of society for casting their votes for the HDP just to stop the AKP from gaining a parliamentary majority.