After 12 years of rule, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), still the strongest party, will not be able to form a government. Prime minister Davutoglu did not exhibit the same amount of charisma as his predecessor and the current president, Tayyip Erdo？an.
The parliamentary elections on June 7 in Turkey have ushered in a new democratic dilemma: the coalition government. Erdogan’s active support of Davutoglu during the campain, did not help him. Every day during the election, President Erdogan violated the existing 1982 constitution and, for the past two days, has not appeared on television. Moreover, he will not appear again before Thursday when he receives a group of young students.
President Erdogan is the ‘’biggest loser’’ of this elections because the ‘’presidential system’’ that he had anticipated and wanted to realize after an AKP victory in the parliamentary elections did not come to fruition. The disappointment he feels is immense and his political charisma both domestically and internationally has suffered tremendeously; his ‘’fall’’ has taught him the greatest lesson yet because this recent election marks his first loss since 2002. The Turkish voters sent a very clear ‘’no’’ to his rhetoric and vision of a ‘’turkish style presidential system,’’ making the true winner of the election the Turkish parliamentary system and democracy.
Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu are the actual ‘’losers of the day’’. Their rhetoric and Islamist tendencies coupled with an authoritarian political attitude that began during the Gezi protests in June 2013 have ended in political defeat. The very fact that AKP has been proven capable of losing an election is a new phenomena. Ever since the final hours of the June 7 elections, the political and psyhological tension in the country has been lifted. There is no doubt that this was the biggest test for proving the maturity of the Turkish democracy. AKP has instituted many progessive reforms in a politcal sense and economic developments with great infrastructural changes.
AKP lost the elections because the expectations of the voters, in particular those of the youth, had not been met and AKP had not been offerng anything new this time around. Moreover, the accusations of corruption within the government played an important role, while AKP’s failed policy towards the Middle East futher exacerbated the situation.
What is happening in Turkey is currently open for debate. Therefore, the fact is that there is a large sense of relief and optimism in the country.
Tayyip Erdogan had enjoyed great voter support in the previous 3 elections and achieved a magical 49 percent of support from the Turkish electorate in the 2011 elections. Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest mistake was being elected president according to the terms of the existing consitiution. He was a political animal who could not remove himself from the political activisim. Also, his wish to change the role of the presidency failed due to the lack of concensus among the other parites in the parliament and in society. He had become president by a thin margin with a 52% majority in an election that took place during the holidays in August 2014, resulting in 17 million voters not going to the polls.
The election results put an end to his ideas and now he has to face reality. This does not mean, however, that he will give up on his ideas; rather, things are now more difficult than ever.
Ironically, now that the elections have provided an opportunity for a coalition goverment, the political parties seem to lack appetite for coalition. What does this mean? The next step for the AKP is to form a government, and talks about coalition will begin soon.
With 13% of the votes and 80 elected deputies, the HDP, known as the Kurdish party is the real winner in the elections. The nationalist party, MHP, also increased the number of its deputies to 80, but could not achieve a breakthrough similar to its success in the elections in April 1998 when the party received nearly 19% of the votes. Both HDP and MHP declared their intention not to form a coalition with the AKP. Many consider this to be an ‘’early and unwise decision’’ on the part of the political leaders of both parties. Whether they will change their attitudes remains to be seen.
The main opposition party, CHP, is in a situation between the ‘’winner and the loser’’. Their votes remained constant despite having made very attractive economic promises to voters, such as increasing the pension salary and issuing two extra payments to the retired. This marks the first time that CHP had used its ‘’economic mindset’’ and forced the ruling AKP to counter them with new arguments. Also, CHP has rejected, so far, forming a coalition with the AKP. As a result, the AKP under prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu seems unable to form a government! Whether Davudoglu will ‘’convince’’ one of the three political leader to form a coalition government is the key question for Turkey.
The three opposition parties should form a government in order to put an end to the AKP political dominance and make it an opposition party. This would be the most expected form of coalition. Then, president Erdogan would have great difficulties surviving the next 4 years as president. But it looks like it would be very difficult for the Kurdish HDP and the nationalist MHP to support each other in a coalition under the leadership of the main opposition party leader Kemal K？l？？daroglu.
What happens if there is no coalition government formed in the next few days?
The natural democratic process would be to hold new elections, which, at this point, will be a ‘’nightmare for the new[ly] elected ‘’ deputies. Today, it looks like in the new elections the AKP will receive an absolute majority of votes. President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu would probably play to this option. This means that any failure in the oppositions parties would strengthen the AKP. This would then become a ‘’nightmare for the secular forces’’ who thought that their defeat of the AKP would also bring about the end of Turkey’s religous orientation under President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu.
The ‘’coalition games’’ in Turkey start soon and every political party is responsible for playing a fair game. Otherwise, the expected result will be new elections. It is expected both domestically and internationally that Turkey will form a coalition government. Every political party tries to maximize their expectations and get more ministries to satisfy their own voters.
Will Turkey fall in to political chaos if no coalition is formed? Probably not this early on. But everyone would lose if an early election was called.
Now the ‘’coalition tango’’ for AKP leader Davutoglu has begun. He needs a partner for the tango and he has at least three possiblilities. Even one would be enough, but who would dare to be the partner? We will see. It takes two to tango!
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.