MHP renews CHP criticism over by-election calls

ANKARA

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli on April 21 criticized the main opposition’s call for by-elections, describing it as untimely and a move against political stability.

“Those insisting on by-elections or early elections should be told this: We will not allow Türkiye’s future to be toyed with, we will not open stability to debate, and we will not sacrifice our peace for personal political ambitions,” Bahçeli told his lawmakers at the weekly parliamentary meeting.

His comments came in response to main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel’s call to act in line with the constitution and fill vacant parliamentary seats. The proposal was dismissed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as unnecessary.

“The repeated and incessant calls for untimely elections in recent days are nothing but the tactics of an incompetent opposition,” Bahçeli said, accusing those advocating by-elections of speaking not about the real concerns of the public but about their own political anxieties.

“The attempt to set Türkiye’s agenda is a futile effort. Elections are not a toy to be brought forward through political acrobatics or manufactured crisis rhetoric,” he added.

In his speech, the MHP leader also condemned last week’s school attacks in Kahramanmaraş and Şanlıurfa, saying the incidents cannot be dismissed through one-dimensional assessments.

“The picture before us must also be evaluated together with the pressures of our era on the psyche of children, the weakening of family bonds, the need to strengthen the school environment, the uncontrolled spaces of the digital world and the fractures in the transmission of social values,” he said.