News:
Turkey Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) met with the four parties that entered parliament and the President of the Association said, “We had an extremely positive meeting with the Prime Minister. Our strong preference is the establishment of a permanent government. Everyone here works to form a coalition, rather than an early election.”
Comment:
President Erdogan has not authorized any party yet to establish the government. All parties think and work both on the formation of a minority coalition as well as on coalition scenarios. Statements made since the election night are replaced by new ones every day. The HDP (The Peoples’ Democratic Party) and the CHP (The Republican People’s Party) who said “our red-line is a government without AKP” refute their talks of yesterday when necessary by saying that “the state cannot remain without leadership”…
Every party’s single red-line is its own interests… This is why we are witnessing self-refuting statements and deeds every day. Since June 7 till today, every party has sought to strengthen its own hands with all these statements for the case of a coalition or early elections. Additionally, each of them wants to increase its votes in case of an early election by presenting itself to the public in a way that states, “We have done the best of our abilities.”
Even though the AKP wants early elections, it wants to establish the government without early elections, while on the other side it tries to prevent the opposition from taking joint action to form a government without the AKP.
The CHP on the other side prioritizes government models that include the MHP and the HDP. However the biggest problem here is that the Turkish nationalist MHP and the Kurdish nationalist HDP form two poles apart and as such the probability of forming a government together is weak.
MHP’s first choice is to stay in opposition. And since the election night, the remarks by MHP leader Bahceli are related to this choice. However, it is highly probable that the MHP forms a coalition if the establishment of a government should fail.
Whereas the HDP who could pass the electoral threshold does not want early elections out of fear to lose its 13% votes from the elections. An AKP-CHP partnership is supported.
All circles call the political parties to act in a responsible manner in establishing a government. It seems that the business circles’ preference of a formula for government is a coalition of AKP+CHP, away from early elections. Alongside this, other formulas like AKP+MHP, AKP+HDP and others are supported as well.
That the AKP received 41% of votes has been in power for 12 years, and that membership in the EU and numerous investments had been initiated by the AKP requires a strong coalition of AKO+CHP. Options other than that are not wanted due to being more short-term coalitions. Additionally, the continuation of the resolution process, discussing and enacting a new constitution, or changes like a change in the law for political parties, will also be on the agenda of the AKP+CHP coalition.
Although a coalition of AKP with MHP is quite possible, it seems difficult due to the MHP’s uncompromising attitude towards the resolution process. Another issue of concern for the AKP is the possibility of not gaining back Kurdish votes it had lost to the HDP as well as a shift of its own nationalist votes to the MHP.
Therefore a coalition of AKP+HDP seems to become a more successful coalition with regards to issues like the resolution process and the constitutional change.
If the AKP does not get what it wants after all these meetings, it might want to go to early elections, reasoning with the other parties’ attitudes. It will also ensure the occurrence of gaps in order to become the single ruling power again.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Musa Bayoğlu