Turkey’s Erdogan set to call snap polls for November 1

About giving the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu the mandate before the 45-day deadline, Erdogan said: “Why would I invite him [Kilicdaroglu] to Bestepe [Presidential Palace], [he] who said “I do not recognize Bestepe”.

The Supreme Election Board proposed November 1 as the date for holding early elections in Turkey.

Deputy Prime Ministers Bulent Arinc and Numan Kurtulmus, two leaders of the AKP, said following the elections that the party would prefer a coalition government to a return to the polls.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared a shadow of his former self after his party suffered major losses in the June election – embattled and no longer in control of his political fate.

“Currently, the date that has been announced in November 1”, Erdogan said, as cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Parliament could in theory also vote to allow the current Cabinet to continue working until a new election, but the MHP has already said it would vote against such a move and other opposition parties have little incentive to do any different.

The ruling party, which Erdogan founded, lost its parliamentary majority in the June election. “He assumes if he gives the mandate, a coalition might be formed and his dreams for an early election will come to naught”, he said.

Amid mounting violence and political uncertainty, Turkey’s lira has been hitting all-time lows, surging past a record 3 per dollar on Thursday, with its 25% drop this year destabilizing the economy and making it the worst-performing emerging market currency after the Brazilian real. At the same time, Turkey has launched its own airstrikes against Islamic State targets and has bombed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq.

The popular issue nowadays in the political backstage is whether the AKP would invite the HDP into the interim government, in which the CHP and MHP refused to take part.

These were the first coalition talks in Turkey, which had unstable governments in the 1990s. He is expected to ask incumbent Prime Minister Davutoglu to take over interim government.

Opponents have accused Erdogan of attacking the PKK in a bid to win nationalists’ support and discredit a pro-Kurdish party, whose gains in the June elections deprived the ruling party of its majority. The coalition-building he reportedly opposed has collapsed, and Turkey is now edging closer toward the new election he has been angling for.