Tuğrul Türkeş

He served in the Turkish Gendarmerie as a conscript between 1972 and 1974 and went on to become a senior Non-Commissioned officer in the Turkish Army Military Police or Askeri İnzibat, retiring in 1995 as a Astsubay Başçavuş or Battalion Second Sergeant-Major. During his military service he trained in Chile, Argentina, Sweden and with joint NATO forces in the UK. After the death of his father and MHP leader Alparslan Türkeş in 1997, Tuğrul Türkeş put forward his name for the party leadership in the subsequent extraordinary congress. He came first in the first round of voting, but failed to secure a sufficient number of votes to be elected outright. Before a second round of voting, many of his rivals abandoned their leadership bids to support Türkeş's rival Devlet Bahçeli. Bahçeli was subsequently elected, after which Türkeş resigned from the party.

Türkeş became a founding member of the new Bright Turkey Party (ATP) after resigning from the MHP, later becoming the party's leader. Before the 2002 general election, he opted to contest the election in an alliance with the True Path Party (DYP). However, when the DYP failed to surpass the 10% election threshold and lost all its parliamentary representation in the 2002 election, Türkeş resigned from the party and its leadership, announcing that he would leave active politics.

Before the 2007 general election, Türkeş and his rival Bahçeli made amends and Türkeş was placed on the party's lists to contest Ankara's first electoral district. He was subsequently elected to parliament and was re-elected in 2011 and June 2015.[7]

While in Parliament, he served in the Turkey-Northern Cyprus interparliamentary friendship group. He also served as a member of the MHP's central executive committee.[8]

The MHP announced that it would not be taking part in the interim election government, in which the party was entitled to three ministerial positions (out of 26). This was attributed to the HDP pledging to take part, with the MHP actively pursuing a policy of distancing themselves from the HDP due to their widely varying ideologies of Turkish nationalism and Kurdish nationalism respectively.

Regardless, Ahmet Davutoğlu sent out invitations to MHP politicians Kenan Tanrıkulu and Meral Akşener along with Türkeş. Türkeş was the only politician to accept the invitation despite the party line being to decline. His decision caused uproar within the MHP with suspension proceedings beginning immediately after Türkeş accepted the invitation. Türkeş defended his decision saying that participating in the election government was a constitutional duty and that he had taken the MHP into government by virtue of doing so. On 5 September 2015, Türkeş was formally suspended from the MHP, with many media commentators noting how he had been suspended from a party that his father had founded.[9] Before being suspended, the MHP had already removed his name from their list of MPs on their website and struck off his name from a lift floor guide in the party headquarters.[10][11]

With his suspension, the MHP's seats in Parliament fell from 80 to 79, falling behind the HDP to become the smallest political group in Parliament. Nevertheless, Türkeş indicated that he might contest the decision to suspend him, stating that he could not be suspended from a party for fulfilling his constitutional duties.

Before being offered a position as a minister, it was revealed that a member of the MHP Leadership Council had attended a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after the temporary speaker Deniz Baykal had done so in July 2015. MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli claimed that he would suspend the MHP member who met with Erdoğan as soon as it became clear who it was. Despite publicly stating that it was not him, camera footage emerged of Türkeş entering and exiting the meeting with Erdoğan. However, since it was not clear at the time whether a coalition could be formed, it was alleged that Bahçeli did not suspend Türkeş so that the MHP could become the main opposition party in the event of an AKP-CHP grand coalition.[12]

After accepting his role as a minister, rumours arose that Türkeş had over ₺1,000,000 in debt and had bought his son a luxury jeep worth ₺400,000. It was alleged that he had joined the government after being offered a large amount of money in return, with Türkeş denying all the rumours.[10] It was also alleged that the AKP had camera recordings of Türkeş that they used as blackmail, to which Türkeş responded that he had never hidden the fact that he had a girlfriend and that if there was such a tape, then the individual who filmed it should be ashamed of themselves.[13]