Turkey has brought forward elections that could pave the way for a single-party state with few checks on the power of the president to 24 June, a year and a half ahead of schedule.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced the new date after meeting Devlet Bahçeli, his ally and head of the nationalist bloc in parliament, who had called on Tuesday for early presidential and parliamentary elections.
“We have decided that elections should be held on 24 June 2018,” Erdoğan said at the presidential palace. “Our preference has been to try to hold out till the date in November 2019. However, whether it be the cross-border operation in Syria, or the historic developments in Iraq and Syria have made it so that it is paramount for Turkey to overcome uncertainty.”
The winner will assume the presidency of the Turkish republic with broad powers that were approved after a constitutional referendum last year. The elections are likely to take place under a state of emergency that has been in place since a coup attempt in July 2016.
Before Wednesday Erdoğan had repeatedly pledged to hold the elections in 2019 as originally planned, but fears of an economic downturn had recently rekindled speculation that he might change his mind.
Bahçeli’s proposal and its quick acceptance by the president was a stunning turnaround that will leave just two months before elections that will transform the political scene in Turkey, sealing its evolution from a parliamentary democracy into an executive presidency with sweeping powers.
Turkey held a referendum on presidential powers in April last year. Narrowly approved by voters, the constitutional amendments abolished the office of prime minister and allowed the president to be a member of a political party, appoint unelected vice-presidents, and have a greater say in appointing judges to the highest judicial board in the country, as well as issuing decrees with the force of law.
Q&AWhat happened in the Turkish referendum and why does it matter?
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On 16 April 2017 Turkish voters narrowly approved a package of constitutional amendments granting President Erdoğan sweeping new powers.
The amendments will transform the country from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential system – arguably the most significant political development since the Turkish republic was declared in 1923.
Under the new system - which is not due to take affect until after elections in June – Erdoğan will be able to stand in two more election cycles, meaning he could govern as a powerful head of state until 2029.
The new laws will notionally allow Erdoğan to hire and fire judges and prosecutors, appoint a cabinet, abolish the post of prime minister, limit parliament’s role to amend legislation and much more.
The president's supporters say the new system will make Turkey safer and stronger. Opponents fear it will usher in an era of authoritarian one-man rule.
The government, led by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP), has launched a wide-ranging crackdown on dissidents in the aftermath of the coup, which is widely believed to have been carried out by followers of Fethullah Gülen, an exiled preacher based in Pennsylvania.
The crackdown has gone beyond the Gülenists to encompass opposition MPs, academics and the media, with dissident journalists imprisoned or facing prosecution for allegedly abetting terrorist groups. Turkey this year was the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, ahead of China and Egypt.
“I think 24 June is going to be a historic day in Turkey,” said Soner Çağaptay, director of the Turkish programme at the Washington Institute and author of a biography of Erdoğan. “It is when the office of prime minister will cease to exist, when the president will be able to rule by decree and the executive presidency will fully form. We will be switching from one Turkey to another, and it will be a dramatic day.”
Bahçeli, whose Nationalist Movement party (MHP) entered into a formal electoral alliance with the AKP, had called on Tuesday for elections to be held in August..
Erdoğan said Turkey’s ongoing campaigns in Syria and Iraq, where it has intervened to fight Islamic State militants and Kurdish paramilitaries, as well as the need to more rapidly implement the new presidential system, made it necessary to hold early elections. Turkish-backed rebels in Syria recently achieved victory in a campaign to conquer the Kurdish enclave of Afrin near the border, a military operation that was widely popular in Turkey.
But experts and observers say the early elections are meant to get ahead of the effects of economic troubles. An ongoing steep fall in the value of the Turkish lira, coupled with warnings of an overheating economy and a widening current account deficit, threaten the popularity of the AKP, which has often banked on a healthy and growing economy as a key element of its popular strength.
The party is also likely to capitalise on nationalist sentiment, which is on the rise after the Afrin operation.
Early elections may also leave Erdoğan with a limited field of competitors. The main secularist opposition bloc, the Republican People’s party (CHP), has failed to win successive elections for 16 years and struggles to field credible presidential candidates. Selahattin Demirtaş, the charismatic leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic party (HDP) has been in prison for over a year and his party has been decimated by arrests of mayors, cadres and MPs, with lawsuits stripping the latter of their immunity.
Meral Akşener, a popular nationalist leader who defected from Bahçeli’s party last year to set up her own, may face procedural hurdles for her party to run in the elections because of a rule that requires political parties to hold a general congress at least six months before the polls. She was billed as a credible opponent to Erdoğan due to her nationalist credentials and the fact that she is a practicing Muslim with secular views on government, and her ability to target both centrist voters and others from the president’s base.
Akşener may still be able to run for the presidency even if her party does not qualify to run for parliament.