A Nationalist Alternative.(Turkey's Nationalist Action Party)(Brief Article)

If the prospect of an Islamist government in Turkey seems alarming, consider an alternative. The right-wing Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, also has a shot in the polls. The group won 18 percent of the vote in the 1999 elections, earning it a place in government. Though it has moved increasingly to the center in recent years, its roots are in quasi-fascist movements of the 1940s--and many of its rank-and-file supporters do not share the new moderation of its leaders. The party claims to be in favor of joining Europe--but in practice balks at the kind of democratic reforms favored by the EU. It blocked moves last month to allow Kurds to broadcast and teach in their own language. It insists that the Kurdish terrorist Abdullah Ocalan be hanged. Nor is it any fan of the IMF.

If such policies sound odd to outsiders, it's music to the ears of Aslan Kuytu, a hard-core nationalist who voted for the party in hopes that it would get tough on leftists, Kurds and Islamists--not to mention those who are "selling Turkey to foreign bankers." Thickset and mustached, the 50-year-old Istanbul shopkeeper complains that the party has spent too much time toeing the line set by its bigger coalition partners in the run-up to the last elections. "We had a great chance to stand up for Turkish values," says Kuytu. "Instead we've given up control of the country to the IMF, and the EU is bullying us into giving up Cyprus."

He ...