Erdogan calls snap elections June 24
ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday called snap elections in Turkey for June 24, bringing the polls forward by over a year-and-a-half to sharply accelerate the transition to a new presidential system. Erdogan’s announcement upended the political timetable in Turkey, which had been set to vote in simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on November 3, 2019.
The elections are especially significant as afterwards a new executive presidencyagreed in a 2017 referendum and denounced by critics as giving the president authoritarian powers-will come into force. The new timetable means that Turkey will also vote in the polls under the state of emergency imposed since the July 15, 2016 failed coup aimed at ousting Erdogan. The authorities agreed this week the emergency should stay in place for another three months.
‘Overcome the uncertainties’ Erdogan made the announcement in an address at his presidential palace after meeting Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) chief Devlet Bahceli who the day earlier had urged early elections. “As a result of consultations with Mr Bahceli, we decided to hold elections on June 24, 2018, a Sunday,” said Erdogan. Bahceli stunned Turkish political observers on Tuesday when he urged the government not to wait for November 2019 to hold the presidential and parliamentary elections, suggesting the polls be held on August 26, 2018.
But the date announced by Erdogan is even earlier and will precipitate an intense election campaign as opposition parties seek to challenge his grip. The MHP chief’s intervention surprised commentators since the government led by Erdogan has repeatedly insisted there will be no early elections. Erdogan said the authorities would have preferred to “grit our teeth” and wait until November 2019 but the situation in neighboring Iraq and Syria “made it essential for Turkey to overcome the uncertainties ahead as soon as possible.”
Turkey is pursuing a cross-border operation inside neighboring Syria, which has been wracked by a seven-year civil war, and earlier this year took the Kurdish militia-held Syrian town of Afrin. Erdogan said he wanted to hasten the move to a new presidential system agreed in the April 16, 2017 referendum which will see the office of prime minister eradicated and a new vertical power structure established under the presidency. “After April 16, Turkey is still ruled by a system that we can consider old,” he said. “The malaise of the old system can be seen in every step we take.”