Prospects for Early elections in Turkey
2022-01-11385 view
Turkish opposition leaders have recently increased their statements about the hypotheses that President Erdogan calling for early elections. In this context, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), said in his latest: I think there will be an election in September, because their own economic plan is not moving any further.
On her part, the leader of the Good (İYİ) Party, Meral Akşener, said on December 28, 2021 that "elections will take place on June 24, 2022." The leader of the Homeland Party (Memleket Partisi), former presidential candidate Muharrem İnce said as well: "The elections are quite close."
Such statements are triggered by a substantial motive on their part; and that is their perception that President Erdogan will hold the elections before Turkish citizens would be further hurt by the deterioration of the economy. At the same time, the opposition leaders' statements are going in such a trend in order to prevent the ruling government from taking advantage of the “temporary” measures that supported the Turkish local currency (Lira), including the latest minimum wage raise.
The third reason for such a perception on their part was the great activity within the circles and cadres of the Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party in the internal and preparatory work for the elections.
An extra motive could be, Erdoğan’s repeated meetings with the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, as the Turkish opposition groups believe that the last meeting was aimed at agreeing on several matters, including setting an earlier date for elections. Such a thought, however, contradicts Erdoğan and Bahçeli’s assurances that the elections are on time in June 2023. It, furthermore, contradicts the idea of changing the electoral law, as any change means that the elections will not take place according to the new change until one year after passing it in the Parliament.
In any case, the decision to hold early elections remains in the hands of President Erdoğan and Devlet Bahçeli. If Erdoğan were to find the electoral environment would guarantee him precedence, he would not hesitate to call for it. He would rather work on availing electoral peaks through positions and decisions with real impacts on citizens. One of these impacts is the new economic model that improves the status of the Turkish currency. Furthermore, Erdoğan still can surprise the opposition by more cards were in his hat.
