On May 15, four prominent politicians of Turkey's third-largest party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), headed to a hotel in Ankara. They had invited thousands of supporters, including hundreds of party delegates, and they were planning to have a "snap party congress," as announced beforehand. But they found the hotel blocked by a squadron of policemen, who were ready to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. After a few hours of people shouting and several brief press statements, the politicians and the crowd dispersed; the MHP snap congress did not take place — at least for now.

This news was welcomed by many. First and foremost by Devlet Bahceli, the current leader of the MHP who seems determined to keep his position. He has been the party chair since 1997, but his popularity has rapidly declined in the last year, as his dull leadership is largely seen as the reason for the party's decline in votes, from 16.3% to 11.9% in just five months. An opposition has grown within the MHP that blames Bahceli for keeping the party weak and that says he is guilty of “treason.”

But it was not only Bahceli and his supporters who were delighted to see the MHP snap congress fail; President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters were also overjoyed, which became clear from the pro-Erdogan media, whose standard-bearer, the daily Sabah, came out the next day with a bold headline: “The MHP’s pirate congress came to an end.” According to the story, all the evil powers that work behind the scenes were disabled and the “plan to create chaos within the MHP” was luckily prevented.

According to the MHP’s opposition figures, however, the powers that worked behind the scenes are none other than the president’s men. The four contenders for Bahceli's job — Meral Aksener, Sinan Ogan, Umit Ozdag and Koray Aydin — explained this in a joint declaration. The legal battle they had launched to organize the congress was interfered by “a phone call from the Justice Ministry.” Based on that, a local court declared their congress-to-be “illegal,” and the Ankara governor mobilized the police to stop the “illegal congress.”