Turkey’s president calls early elections
Erdogan’s move catches many off guard, speeds up process of new system
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan caught Turkey off guard on Wednesday by calling early elections for June, in a move that could cement his grip on power a year ahead of schedule.
Erdogan announced that parliamentary and presidential elections, originally scheduled for November 2019, will now be held June 24, meaning that a new political system that increases the powers of the president will take effect a year early.
Turkey is switching from a parliamentary system to a presidential one, abolishing the office of the prime minister and decreasing the powers of the parliament, following a narrowly approved referendum last year. The changes take effect with the next election.
Erdogan would be able to run for two five-year terms on top of his current term.
The strongman, who has ruled Turkey since 2003, spoke of the need for the new system to be implemented quickly in order to deal with numerous challenges ahead, including Turkey’s fight against Kurdish insurgents in Syria and Iraq.
The move, however, allows the leader — criticized for his authoritarian tendencies — to capitalize on nationalist sentiment that is running high following a successful military campaign to drive out Syrian Kurdish militants from the border enclave of Afrin in northeast Syria and ahead of warnings that the economy could be foundering. It also puts opposition parties, many of which haven’t yet decided who to put forward to challenge Erdogan, at a distinct disadvantage.
“Erdogan wants to take stock of a number of developments that are in his favour,” said Soner Cagaptay, Turkey researcher at the Washington Institute.
“Be it the cross-border operations in Syria, or incidents of historic importance centred in Syria and Iraq, they have made it imperative for Turkey to overcome uncertainties quickly,” Erdogan said, in apparent reference to aspirations of Kurdish independence in both countries.
Erdogan announced the early elections after a meeting with Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s main nationalist party, MHP, who made a surprise call for early elections citing efforts by unnamed circles to foment chaos in Turkey. The MHP has agreed to an election alliance with Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP. Erdogan, who has moved to further tighten his grip on power since a failed coup attempt in 2016, needs a 51-per-cent majority to be re- elected in the first round of the presidential election.
The decision to hold early polls comes a month after the AKP, with the help of the nationalist party, changed electoral laws that, among other things, paves the way for government employees to monitor ballot boxes, reducing independent monitoring of the polls.
It also follows the sale of Turkey’s largest media group, Dogan Holding, to a group that is close to Erdogan — a move observers say places 90 per cent of the nation’s media under Erdogan’s control.
It was unclear whether Meral Aksener, the leader of the fledgling centre-right Good Party, which broke away from the MHP, would be eligible to run in the polls. Aksener had announced her intention to run against Erdogan and was seen as a strong candidate. Selahattin Demirtas, the charismatic former leader of Turkey’s proKurdish party, is in jail on terrorism charges.
The elections would be held under a state of emergency that was declared following the failed coup. Parliament extended it for a seventh time despite calls for its end. The main opposition party accuses the government of misusing its emergency powers to erode democracy and arrest government critics.