Nationalists

Meral Akşener, a former Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lawmaker who later became a dissident, will stand as a presidential candidate for the 2019 elections from a party she is set to establish in October, former MHP lawmaker Koray Aydın has announced. 

The head of the ethnic Albanian Besa party in Macedonia, Bilall Kasami, on Wednesday said his party's participation in a new Social Democrat-led government will depend on whether other participants propose ministers who are entangled in corruption scandals.

Renowned Russian internet portal Izvestia.ru warns that after the early elections on June 11, extreme nationalists will reach the authorities in Pristina and they will begin the process of creating a "Greater Albania" and that war criminal Ramush Haradinaj will get one of the most important functions in the new government.

Osmaniye is a province that draws special interest and attention on each election or referendum as it is the hometown of Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). In this context, the spotlight was again on Osmaniye on the April 16 constitutional amendments referendum. 

An opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) dissident politician has said the MHP "is our home," signaling that the renegaded group was not considering establishing a new party.  

"The MHP is our home and a mother's bosom. My friends and I don't have a plan B," Koray Aydın said on April 20.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has concluded in a meeting after the results of the April 16 charter referendum were revealed that a "federalism" debate with its ally opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had cost a 2 percent loss to the "yes" vote, according to sources. 

GERB and the United Patriots, a coalition that brings together three nationalist parties, the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria, VMRO and ATAKA, agreed on Tuesday to form a coalition government with a four-year mandate and Boyko Borissov as prime minister.

The agreement was announced after a first round of negotiations for a new cabinet was held in parliament.

Ahead of an important summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday - probably the last to take place before Britain invokes the Article 50 mechanism for leaving the EU - David McAllister, German MEP and leader of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the EU to do more to counter Russian influence in the Balkans.

Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) President Massoud Barzani's visit to Turkey last week created a minor controversy amid Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli's fury over the KRG flag. Bahçeli described the KRG flag as a "rag" and condemned the raising of "the so-called flag" in Ankara during Barzani's visit.

There are a number of political reasons for the convergence of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP): President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party changed their policies on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Syria, the peace process was discarded, and the Fethullahist Terror Organization's (FETÖ) July 2016 coup attempt occur