Wait for April 16 for election date
Erdoğan won’t reveal his hand before the presidential race is over Elections are very important not only because they allow people in democracies to shape the political administration of the country for the period ahead but, at the same time, they are occasions for the governments to give an account of their achievements and failures to the absolute sovereign – the people – on whose behalf they administer the country.
Elections are very important not only because they allow people in democracies to shape the political administration of the country for the period ahead but, at the same time, they are occasions for the governments to give an account of their achievements and failures to the absolute sovereign – the people – on whose behalf they administer the country.
Every democracy has its own peculiarities. For example, in the United States, election dates are fixed and there is no possibility of an early election. In European democracies, often it is the governments that decide through their majority in parliaments when the elections will be held. In some countries, presidents have the power to dissolve parliaments and call for fresh parliamentary elections. In Turkey the president has no such powers unless certain conditions specified in the Constitution – such as failure to form a government within 45 days after election results were officially announced or if efforts to establish a government within 45 days after a government resigned or ousted by a parliamentary vote – were present. And, like most European democracies only the parliament – the ruling majority deputies who act at the “request of the government” – can decide when elections will be held.
Past lessons:
From already published memoirs, we know that days before the May 27, 1960 coup the then prime minister of the country, the late Adnan Menderes, was of the opinion that Turkey needed to go to early polls but he was unsuccessful in convincing the then president of the country, Celal Bayar. Again, just two weeks ago there was an interview with former minister Mehmet Keçeciler, during which he revealed in great openness the discussions he had in two meetings just before the Sept. 12, 1980 coup. Keçeciler’s first meeting was with the prime minister of the time, Süleyman Demirel and the second one was with the opposition Welfare Party (RP) leader Necmettin Erbakan. According to Keçeciler, Demirel had requested him to ask Erbakan to agree to an early election so that an upcoming coup could be averted, but Erbakan did not consider Demirel’s proposal as something serious and flatly rejected it as a political maneuver.
And, we know from our discussions with Demirel that he often underlines the fact that if politicians could agree to go to early polls, coups might have been avoided.
For the past two years, many people have been screaming in this country that a crisis is in the making and an early election could stop it. The government, for its own reasons that are known to anyone following Turkish politics, has been adamantly against early elections. The political Islam in Turkey that started with a single independent deputy in the 1965 elections has become the majority party in Parliament for the first time and its parliamentary strength is sufficient enough to send someone to the presidency, thus crowning its dominancy in Turkish politics. Since no one can guarantee the outcome of the next elections, why should it lose the golden opportunity of winning the presidential post – the seat of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and the symbol of the secular state order of the country?
But, for exactly the same reason a coalition of conservative secularists, Kemalists and the civilian and military establishment have been demanding the next president be elected not by an outgoing Parliament dominated by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) but by a new Parliament that will be forged with an early election on a date before the April 16 start of the presidential election process. Fearing that the country was heading into a dangerous political confrontation, many people that did not belong to either two blocs have been stressing that it is in Turkey’s best national interest to go to early polls.
Erdoğan won’t reveal his hand:
It has become impossible to have early elections between now and the April 16 start of the presidential election process. Holding elections at any date after the completion of the presidential election process on May 16 can no longer be considered an early election. However, while a parliamentary election at an earlier date than the scheduled Nov. 4 will not help defuse the tensions this country is apparently doomed to have over presidential elections, it indeed could help the AKP minimize the possible impact on its election performance, the unavoidable presidential tension and a possible leadership change.
As Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is very wisely unwilling to clarify before April whether he will seek the presidency – and since an election date sometimes earlier than the scheduled Nov. 4 would mean the AKP is maneuvering to limit the impact on its election performance and a change in leadership – the earliest date the ruling party can be expected to spell out for parliamentary polls is April 16 when candidates for the presidency will be finalized.