Turkey ‘swiftly’ heading to early elections — Erdogan
Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was on Tuesday set to formally acknowledge to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he can not form a coalition government, paving the way for new elections just months after the June polls.
If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decides to call for an early election in Turkey, the country will go to polls in late October, the daily said.
According to Yusuf Sevki Hakyemez, a lecturer at Karadeniz Technical University in the northeastern province of Trabzon and head of the Association of Constitutional Lawyers, once Davutoglu returns the mandate, Erdogan could assign someone new to form a government.
However, another round of elections would give the AK Party a chance at regaining its majority in the Parliament and allowing it to rule as a single-party government.
Davutoglu met the leader of the right-wing opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Monday in a last-ditch effort to agree a working government, but the nationalist leader refused all the options he presented.
The constitution says that only the president or the parliament may decide to hold a new election. Erdogan has already been overstepping the bounds of his symbolic role on most matters of state, including Turkey’s fight against terror.
Turkey’s ruling and opposition parties have yet again failed to come to an agreement on the formation of a coalition government that would end the country’s political impasse.
Part of the reason that Erdogan feels the AKP’s electoral fortunes will differ with new elections is tied to increased tensions with the PKK since June, analysts suggest.
Erdoğan, who won Turkey’s first popular presidential election in August 2014 and has since stretched the powers of a largely ceremonial post to their limits, has said the system of power has changed in Turkey.
“What must be done now is to clarify and codify the legal framework of this de facto situation with a new constitution”.
“Altogether and under the orders of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (…) let’s conquer Istanbul, which the traitor Erdogan works day and night to hand over to crusaders”, the man added, while referring to Islamic State’s leader.
Opponents have accused Erdogan of launching the military operations against the PKK in a bid to win nationalists’ support and discredit a pro-Kurdish party, whose gains in the June election deprived the AKP of its majority.
“Erdogan is likely to continue to target the HDP during the campaign period to discredit them with the hope of keeping them below the 10-per cent threshold”, she said.