Turkey elections: More than just a change of government

On May 14, Turkey will elect a new parliament and a new president. And after 20 years in power, the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is not the clear favorite. The polls also show his electoral alliance trailing behind that of the opposition. So, what is Turkey’s political system? According to its constitution, the Turkish Republic was established in 1923 as a parliamentary democracy. Erdogan, however, was keen to change this — and in 2017, his governing AKP party amended the constitution with the support of its ultra-nationalist partner, the MHP.

They introduced an executive presidential system with the 2018 elections. Since then, the president has not only the country’s head of state, he also heads the government. The office of prime minister has been abolished. The president is directly elected by the people for a five-year term, and under the new system he has wide-ranging powers. He appoints and dismisses ministers and high-ranking civil servants at his own discretion, and he also heads the cabinet. The ministers appointed by him can, in turn, appoint governors and state representatives in the provinces and administrative districts, which allows the president to exert his influence all the way down to local government. The head of state also has the power to issue presidential decrees and to fill many posts in the judiciary, as well as in specific departments such as finance or education. The most important offices of the secret service and the powerful religious authority Diyanet also report directly to the president.

Furthermore, the requirement of non-partisanship was abolished with the introduction of the presidential system. This has meant that, as president, Erdogan has been able to continue as chairman of his conservative Islamic ruling party, the AKP. There is now very little in the way of separation of powers. There are four candidates running in the presidential election. However, it is the incumbent president, Erdogan, and his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the largest opposition alliance, who will be going head to head. Many polls put Kilicdaroglu in the lead, making Erdogan and the government camp increasingly nervous. The approval ratings of the other two candidates hover between 2-6%. Their candidacies are more likely to mean that the presidency will be decided only after a run-off, in a second round of voting. During his time in office, Erdogan has tailored the apparatus of state to his own ends by repeatedly extending his powers.

Although the number of delegates increased from 550 to 600 when the presidential system was introduced, Erdogan has relegated the Turkish parliament to insignificance. It can still debate and pass laws, but the government camp, with its predominant majority, has blocked every opposition project in parliament and simply forced through its own political agenda.

The government has also used its majority to stymie opposition demands, such as the establishment of committees of inquiry in response to major disasters or allegations of corruption. In most cases, the government has not even responded to the opposition’s inquiries. At present, there are 14 parties represented in parliament. Many of these were able to pass the seven-percent hurdle by forming electoral alliances. Three electoral alliances are playing a decisive role in the parliamentary elections: Erdogan’s People’s Alliance, the National Alliance of the biggest opposition block and the Labor and Freedom Alliance, led by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or HDP.

All the media channels are diligently toeing the government line. TRT, the state radio and television broadcaster, and the Anadolu news agency have accompanied Erdogan and his allies every step of the way. The opposition calculates that the incumbents have had 3,600 minutes of airtime in the past four weeks; meanwhile, their competitors have been allocated a grand total of 42 minutes, all for negative reporting.