Turkish election board confirms new poll date as November 1

Erdogan was expected to re-appoint Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to form an interim government during a meeting on Tuesday.

Turkey’s election board has confirmed the date for the new poll as November . 1.

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have refused to take part in the caretaker election government. Erdogan formally called for a new election late on Monday, following an inconclusive vote in June, and the collapse of coalition-building efforts.

The leader of pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP said his deputies are ready but would not be surprised if Davutoglu tried to exclude them.

“A provisional government will not only be hard to form, its legitimacy will also be deeply questioned and its effectiveness will be limited,” said a report by Naz Masraff and Mehmet Muderrisoglu, who cover Turkey at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

During the elections held in June 2015, AKP won only 258 seats, where 276 was the minimum requirement to have overall majority in the Turkish Parliament with 550-seats in total.

The prospect of forming a government – however brief – alone with the HDP is an alarming prospect for Davutoglu and Erdogan who have accused the party of being a front for outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels.

“You can not lead a country by shutting the doors”, Davutoglu said.

The daily reported that Nedim Cihan, mayor of Hopa, a district in Artvin where the rainfall hit hardest, said he could not recall such a deluge.

The last election centred around Erdogan’s push to gain more powers as president, and he has implied he would again want voters to chose the AKP so he could create an executive-style presidency.

In the new election, the AKP will need 60% of seats to be able to call a referendum on presidential powers. To make the amendments, the AKP needs a two-thirds – or 367-seat – majority in the legislative branch so it could rewrite the constitution.

Hakan Bayrakci, political consulter and head of Sonar research center, said that the AKP has the chance to establish one-party government as long as the terrorism continues. It may prompt complications in the other issues of the Middle East, including Syria civil war, fight against Islamic State in Iraq and terrorist organisation based in Syria.