Turkey’s People’s Alliance, opposition parties eye parliament majority

As Turkey’s general elections loom, People’s Alliance established by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), as well as opposition parties, are both aiming at a parliament majority.

Turkey’s opposition parties developed a strategy to win at least 301 seats in the 600-seat parliament, in a bid to take the presidential election to a second round, local experts said.

The opposition parties’ first goal is winning more seats and having enough quorum, said Kemal Ozkiraz, former chairman of Eurasia Research Center and now parliament member nominee for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The opposition parties will put up their own candidates in the first round of the presidential elections, he said, adding that the polls will see the second round if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round.

The opposition parties then will support the highest-polling candidate among their nominees, the expert said.

CHP’s leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has been working on this strategy for the past three months, he said.

The upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24 see intense alliances and cooperation efforts focused on competition mainly between the two blocks.

The main opposition CHP, the IYI (Good) Party, the Felicity Party (SP) and the Democrat Party (DP) compose an alliance running against the People’s Alliance.

The ruling party introduced a legislative change and made pre-election alliances possible for upcoming elections. Hence the 10 percent election threshold will be calculated based on the sum of votes of all parties in an alliance.

The opposition block constitutes the “No” block members in the 16 April referendum last year, which passed with 51.41 percent vote the change from a nearly century-old parliamentary system to an executive presidency.

Only pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) is not part of the opposition alliance. Although they have not declared a position for the second round of presidential elections, it will not be a surprise if the party lends support to the opposition block.

However, if the HDP cannot exceed the election threshold, the ruling AKP will receive almost 70 more seats in the parliament, putting the opposition block’s plans for a majority at risk. If the opposition block wins a majority in parliament on June 24, they will gain the psychological upper hand for the second round of presidential elections on July 8.

According to the CHP, all opposition parties must be in parliament, Gul said, adding therefore some small parties with threshold problem could take part in the CHP’s candidate lawmakers list for the parliament.

One crucial outcome of the opposition alliance is that it is not about overcoming the electoral threshold, but has turned the June 24 elections into a second referendum on the country’s regime model, Sedat Ergin, daily Hurriyet columnist wrote.

The elections are a turning point for the AKP and its leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well. The AKP and the MHP have already endorsed Erdogan as their candidate for president and are set to focus on preparing lists of potential lawmakers and campaigning strategies. Leader of the AKP, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister from 2003 to 2014, has been serving as Turkey’s first popularly-elected president.

If he wins the June 24 election, Erdogan will be the country’s first leader under the executive presidency system.

Erdogan has two goals, according to Abdulkadir Selvi, daily Hurriyet columnist.

One is to win the presidential elections overwhelmingly in the first round, he said. For the general elections, Erdogan wants the MHP-AKP alliance to get a majority which will enable constitutional change, Selvi said.

The results of the presidential and parliamentary elections will also be determined by young voters, as there are 1.5 million new, young voters who will be participating in the elections for the first time.

The referendum, held on April 16, 2017, which paved the way for constitutional amendments, lowered the minimum age of eligibility for parliament from 25 to 18. It is believed that interest in the elections among young voters will increase, and participation of young people in politics will rise.

This is an article of the Xinhua News Agency. opinion@ globaltimes.com.cn