Turkey heading difficult times in the eve of elections
Turkey is going to have its deputy elections on 1st November 2015 which is considered to be one of the most important elections in the history of the Republic of Turkey.
On June 7th the country had already had an election where no party alone was able to get the majority votes to form a cabinet. Thereafter the efforts of the PM Davutoğlu to form a coalition government with the CHP (Republican People’s Party) had been in vain as both parties were not able to agree on several items to co-operate.
It was also mentioned by many journalists and in media in general that president Erdoğan did not favor formation of a coalition government in which case he would have to take up the challenge from opposition parties in regards to corruption allegations during his service in office as PM.
Thus he decided to re-new the elections in a way hoping the AKP could and would achieve a majority of votes this time to form a single party government (AKP that is) on which occasion the president could feel secure and not exposed to any threats from the opposition in the parliament.
Now just 10 days before the deputy elections the authorities and opinion leaders as well as poll companies say it is almost out of question for the AKP to grasp a good enough majority in elections to make the president’s dream come true; That is have enough number of deputies in the parliament to change the constitution and eventually the parliamentary regime which the president claims is out fashioned and does not meet the requirements of the country any more.
Yes, the president would like (and in fact insists) to introduce this country the PRESIDENTIAL regime like with the USA of France etc. where he hopes and obviously plans to rule the country with even a more powerful authority. The interesting part is he already uses a lot of power and in fact is often criticized to be surpassing his authority defined and limited by the constitution currently in effect.
Thus, as expressed by the opposition parties the country is not in need of regime shift towards a presidential system for a better administration with more power. It is simply a matter of bad management – not to forget the corruption and violation of the constitution prevailing in the country for several years now – and it would even be more dangerous and harmful for the country to authorize a single person with more authority in case of a presidential system.
The picture now is the ruling party in spite of all its efforts and the advantage of using the facilities of the state in its electoral campaigns – which is said not to comply with the law in effect – does not seem very likely to be able to win majority votes in the coming election. This statement of course is based on the poll results of several professional companies known to be experts in this area.
The conclusion is, Turkey in spite of the efforts and wishes of the ruling AKP and the president who is certainly known to be the man ruling, behind the stage is not very likely to say yes to the presidential regime by granting AKP a majority number of seats in the parliament. That is the point where we face the vital question; “What happens then?”
Would AKP have to form a coalition government with CHP (most likely) or MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) as a second alternative inevitably or else could the AKP (and the president behind the stage obviously) come up with another alternative which no one would be able think of currently?
Well, it seems that we will have to wait until we have the election results before we know what the picture turns out be. But in any case one thing is clear and it is Turkey is bound to go through even some more difficult times in the close future.
Editor
