Turkish Interior Ministry fast-tracks nationalist party application as Greens await approval

Istanbul deputy Ümit Özdağ submitted documents to the Interior Ministry for the establishment of his Victory Party on Thursday, the party announced with a tweet.

On the same day, the former member of two nationalist parties in parliament was given a document confirming the application.

Özdağ was elected to parliament from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), currently allied with the government, but his membership was revoked in 2016. In the same year, the right-wing politician joined the Good Party (İYİP), founded by former minister Meral Akşener and other former members of the MHP, and was dismissed from the centre-right party in November last year.

“Ümit Özdağ submits the documents, and the secretary general of the governor -not even a regular public servant- gives him the receipt document that we have been denied for months,” Koray Doğan Urbarlı, the co-spokesperson-to-be of Turkey’s Greens Party, said in a tweet.

Bakın size bir çifte standartın belgesini göstereyim. @umitozdag belgelerini teslim ediyor. Bir memur da değil, doğrudan genel sekreter o bizden aylardır sakladıkları alındı belgesini veri veriyor.
Bu çifte standarta diyecek şeyiniz var mı Sayın @suleymansoylu ? pic.twitter.com/lAywIANqCY

— Koray Doğan Urbarlı (@Urbarli) August 26, 2021

The Greens of Turkey have been waiting for months to officially launch their party, but have been unable to do so due to clerical delays. The party submitted its application in September last year, but wasn’t given a receipt, which is necessary for the party to gain official recognition.

“This is not a ban, because political parties don’t get permission before establishing. This is not a hindrance because for that they would have to put forth a reason. This is stalling, and it is a stalling because there is a loophole in the law,” Urbarlı told Ahval in a podcast in June.

The party launched a petition for the ministry to give it the necessary documents, and deputies from opposition parties, including main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), former minister Ali Babacan’s Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), and Workers’ Party Turkey (TİP), have signed the petition.

On Friday, DEVA deputy Mustafa Yeneroğlu posed a parliamentary inquiry to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu to ask why the receipt document wasn’t provided to the Greens after 11 months, and on what grounds was the ministry “preventing the party achieving legal entity”.

Yeşiller Partisi’ne 11 aydır 'alındı belgesi' verilmediği ve tüzel kişilik kazanmasının engellendiği iddiası doğru mudur?

İçişleri Bakanı'nın cevaplaması istemiyle TBMM'ye sunduğumuz soru önergesi ?https://t.co/KrsNQfAd8n pic.twitter.com/vXGldDwRum

— Mustafa Yeneroğlu (@myeneroglu) August 27, 2021

“It is not only the Greens that are hindered this way,” scholar Yektan Türkyılmaz said in a tweet. “The establishment of new Kurdish parties are also prevented. This means a ban on engaging with politics within a legal framework.”

Pek ilgi çekmiyor ama bir tek Yeşiller Partisinin değil yeni Kürt partilerinin kurulması da bu şekilde engelleniyor. Legal çerçevede siyaset yapma yasağı demek bu. Deva Partisi rejimin ulaştığı noktayı gösterir önemli bir emareye işaret etmiş. https://t.co/xzLsnI8U1x

— yektan turkyilmaz (@yektantyilmaz) August 27, 2021

Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is currently facing a lawsuit to shut down the party and ban hundreds of its most prominent members from engaging in politics. Several of its predecessors were shut down in similar lawsuits, and the latest party from a similar line, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), later became a constituent of the HDP itself, along with dozens of left-wing parties and organisations.