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Turkey’s nationalist opposition said on Monday it would back President Tayyip Erdogan in the 2019 election, signaling continued right-wing support crucial to his narrow victory in a constitutional referendum last year, Reuters reports.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the smallest of parliament’s four factions, backed the vote to grant Erdogan sweeping executive powers, helping it squeak by with a margin of 51.4 percent.

“The MHP will not submit a presidential candidate,” MHP leader Devlet Bahceli told a news conference. “The MHP will take a decision to support Erdogan in the presidential elections.” Turks will vote for both president and parliament next year.

Bahceli said the MHP would consider an alliance with Erdogan’s AK Party if such a request came from the AKP.

Founded by an ex-colonel involved in a 1960 military coup, the MHP espouses a mix of Turkish nationalism and scepticism toward the West. It is virulently opposed to autonomy for Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

The MHP support base once included sympathizers of the “Grey Wolves”, a nationalist youth group that fought street battles with leftists in the 1970s. Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, was a group member.