Erdogan's Power Grab Thwarted

Heading into Turkey’s parliamentary elections, the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was hoping to win enough of the vote so that it could secure a two-thirds majority in the Turkish parliament.  If the AKP had been able to win two thirds of the 550 seats in the Turkish parliament, it would have had the ability to change the country’s constitution without needing the support of any other political party.  Had it won a two-thirds majority in the parliament, the plan had been the transfer much of the country’s political power to the presidency, which is held by the dominant individual within the AKP party, President (and former prime minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan.   President Erdogan has filled that largely ceremonial role since 2014, after he stepped down as prime minister after 12 years in that role.  He clearly was hoping that his powers as president could be strengthened in the wake of this year’s elections.

Unfortunately for President Erdogan’s plans, his AKP party was unable to maintain its huge lead in the polls when the elections were called and saw its support trend downwards in the final weeks before these elections.  In the end, the AKP party won 40.9% of the vote (almost 9% less than in 2011’s parliamentary elections) and 256 of the 550 seats in the parliament.  This was not due to a strong performance by the AKP’s mainly secular rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), as it held steady with 25% of the vote and 132 seats in the parliament.  Instead, two other parties made major gains in these elections.  In third place was the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which increased its number of seats in the parliament to 82 by toning down its nationalistic rhetoric in recent years.  The only other party to exceed the 10% threshold to enter the parliament was the leftist pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which saw it share of the vote soar to 13.1% and its number of seats in the parliament rise to 80.

Instead of controlling two-thirds of the seats in the Turkish parliament, the AKP party now finds itself in a position where it is likely to struggle to just form a new government.  First of all, it failed to win even half of the seats in the parliament and the CHP and the HDP have ruled out forming a coalition government with the AKP.  This leaves only the nationalist MHP party as a potential coalition partner for the AKP, but there is a great deal of bad blood between the two parties.  Another alternative is for the AKP party to form a minority government, but this would certainly prove to be weak and ineffective at a time when Turkey is in need of strong political and economic leadership.  Another possibility is that the AKP fails to form a new government within the 45-day time limit, something that would force new parliamentary elections to take place.

These elections have brought an end to what was believed by many to be the invincibility of the AKP party at the polls in Turkey.  Before these elections, the contrasts between the rising birth rate among poor, religious and rural voters and the sagging birth rate among urban and educated voters was thought to be providing the AKP with an ever-strong voter base that would allow it to remain in power indefinitely.  Instead, a weakening Turkish economy and the increasingly authoritarian leadership of President Erdogan resulted in many of the AKP’s core supporters deserting the party in favor of the MHP or the HDP.  It now remains to be seen how President Erdogan will react to this defeat, as it is his first serious setback since he took power 13 years ago.  What Turkey does not need now is a weak and divided government as it faces unrest all along its borders as well as a struggling economy.