Erdogan’s AKP party set for sweeping win in Turkey elections

Only question is whether prime minister will win enough votes to secure a mandate to rewrite the country’s constitution Voters in Turkey look set to make Recep Tayyip Erdogan the most successful prime minister in the history of the country’s multi-party system after an election that could open the door for fundamental changes to the constitution. Erdogan’s centre-right Justice and Development party (AKP) has goverened since a landslide victory in 2002, and all indicators are that it will win easily again after Sunday’s vote. “The sole question is if the AKP will win with a margin sufficiently large enough to secure them a constitutional majority, ” Gencer Ozcan, professor for international relations at Bilgi University, told the Guardian. According to Turkey’s current constitution, a party needs to win at least 10% of the national vote before it can enter the country’s 550-seat parliament. Only two of the 15 parties standing for election are expected to achieve that, with pollsters suggesting that the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will get up to 30% of the votes. The rightwing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) might yet be stopped from reaching the threshold, after a sex tape scandal caused the resignation of 10 senior party members. Some 28 independent candidates, who are not bound to the 10% hurdle, are also expected to be voted into office. The AKP has vowed to change the constitution, which has remained largely unchanged since it was implemented in 1982 in the aftermath of a military coup two years earlier. If the MHP fails to get 10% of the vote, the AKP has a real chance to secure a supermajority, which would allow Erdogan to rewrite the country’s constitution without having to consult the rest of parliament. “In one way or another, Erdogan wants to implement a presidential system,” Ozcan said. “This is the main goal of a new constitution. This is the first time that the prime minister handpicked all AKP candidates, assuring absolute loyalty within his own party. In previous terms, there was a form of balance of power within the AKP, but this is now over.” Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian stance has raised concerns in Turkey and abroad, and government critics accuse him of wanting to “Putinise” the country in an effort to remain in charge beyond 2015, when he would be barred from serving as prime minister again. “He strongly dislikes any kind of checks and balances,”Ozcan said. Four years ago the debate centred on whether Erdogan wanted to turn Turkey into an Islamic state , with the military threatening to overthrow the government. “The only reason that I give my vote to the CHP today is to push the AKP out of power,” said Seyhan Namli, as he went to the polls in the Cihangir neighbourhood of Istanbul. “I am not afraid of an Islamisation of Turkey at all,” she said. “But the AKP disregards the poor, the disenfranchised. They do politics only to fill their own pockets.” Even were they to win a constitutional majority in parliament, the AKP will face a rocky third term. Analysts predict a dangerously overheating economy, and Turkey’s “zero-problem” foreign policy is being challenged by regional uprisings such as that in neighbouring Syria , long an ally of AKP-ruled Turkey. Journalist Oral Çalislar told the Guardian: “Prime Minister Erdogan has already indicated that after the elections, the honeymoon with Syria will be over. Turkey will take a much harder stance, and side with the EU to solve the Syrian problem.” The handling of Turkey’s large Kurdish minority will also be a key issue. In a ballot station in the predominantly Kurdish area of Dolapdere, Süleyman Demir expressed his dissatisfaction with the AKP. “We don’t expect anything from the government anymore”, he said. “Erdogan has made his view on Kurdish rights only too clear over the past weeks.” During the election campaign Erdogan adopted a harsher and more nationalistic tone which, critics say, has alienated many Kurds. “There is no comparison anymore to the Erdogan of 2002 and 2005. He has turned his stance by 180 degrees,” said 34-year-old Demir. He, like many other Kurds, voted for one of the independent candidates backed by the Kurdish BDP. “We don’t want any canals, bridges or airports,” he said in reference to Erdogan’s regeneration schemes . “We don’t need any ‘crazy projects’. All we want is peace, and an end to the bloodshed in the south-east.” Turkey Middle East Europe guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.