Erdoğan makes a move and proposes an early election in Turkey
Erdoğan, cornered by the unforeseen unity of the opposition and the blatant signs of weakness reflected in the polls, wants to appeal to the epic to get back on track on the eve of an election that will be decisive for Turkey's future. The current president is prepared to do battle to hold on to office for at least the next five years. With that goal in mind, he announced on Wednesday in a speech to members of his Islamist AKP party that he intended to bring forward the date of the next presidential and parliamentary elections, initially set for 18 June.
Some opposition leaders and political commentators had sensed Erdoğan's strategy. The president's plans are aimed at buying time and putting pressure on the Table of Six, the six-party coalition that has joined forces to unseat him at the polls. They have yet to agree on a candidate with only weeks to go before the campaign begins. In addition, Erdoğan is seeking to legally armour himself so that he can run for a third term in office in five years' time. Should the elections finally be held in June, he would not be able to run in 2027, according to the constitution.
The Islamist leader chose a new election date: 14 May. This is not innocent. It is a date of enormous symbolism in Turkish politics. On 14 May 1950, the young Republic held the first multi-party elections in its history. The Democratic Party (DP) candidate, Adnan Menderes, won with 52 per cent of the vote. The conservative leader crushed his rival, the Republican People's Party (CHP), the party that threatens Erdoğan's hold on power seven decades later.
Menderes' victory put an end to the one-party rule that had governed Turkey since the founding of the Republic in 1923 by the father of the country, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The CHP ruled the country for the first 27 years, establishing a secular, military-led regime. Menderes ruled for a decade until he was deposed by the army in a coup d'état in 1960. That was the first coup in modern Turkey. The centre-right prime minister was eventually convicted by a military court on charges of violating the constitution and executed a year later.
Menderes has been one of the ideological references that have guided Erdoğan's political career. The Islamist considers himself a follower of his tradition, a natural heir. Indeed, in 2021 he inaugurated a gigantic project on the island of Imrali, where the coup plotters imprisoned and tried the leaders of the Democratic Party before executing Menderes and his ministers of economy and foreign affairs, to commemorate his figure.
Erdoğan's AKP has its roots in Menderes' Democratic Party. The current president has copied some of Menderes' rhetoric and political discourse. Now, the Islamist wants to repeat the former president's feat and topple the CHP at the ballot box. He told his subordinates: "On 14 May 1950, the late Menderes said, 'enough is enough, the nation has its say', and emerged from the polls with a great victory. On the same day, 73 years later, our nation will say "enough is enough" to these clownish coup plotters and incompetent wannabes in front of us. I call on our Parliament to do what is necessary".
But epicness is not the only reason Erdoğan has decided to bring forward the date of the elections, perhaps the most important in Turkey's recent history. The president needs to turn his latest economic measures, aimed at reducing public discontent, into votes. The Turkish government recently approved scrapping the retirement age, allowing more than two million people to apply for an early pension, and raised the minimum wage by 55 per cent and another 35 per cent for state employees.
The stimulus, however, will take time to crystallise. The collapse of the Turkish lira and a high inflation rate of over 64 per cent has plunged the country into a deep economic crisis. The global context has not been supportive, but experts agree that much of the damage has been caused by the government's measures. Erdoğan's decision to push the Central Bank to lower interest rates, a move that goes against the grain of conventional theory.
The precarious economic situation of many families in Turkey, who have seen their purchasing power vanish in a matter of months, has put him in a weak position in the polls for the first time. The president's popular support is falling at a considerable rate, not insignificant for a figure who has been able to take the pulse of the street like few others. Despite this loss of support, Erdoğan has all the levers of power on his side. From the army to the media.
"The presidential and parliamentary elections will be very unfair, but real and competitive," argues analyst Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı. "President Erdoğan has the odds in his favour, but no outcome is impossible given the recent dynamism among opposition parties." The ruling AKP will likely remain the country's leading political force, but there are other potential opposition candidates with better ratings in the polls than Erdoğan. If none of them achieves a majority in the first round, there will be a second round.
The six opposition parties that make up the coalition against Erdoğan, including the social democratic CHP, flatly reject an early election. The opposition alliance has not yet chosen its candidate. The recent jail sentence and disqualification of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, a prominent CHP member, put his name at the top of the list to lead the coalition. But he is not even the leader of his party. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is the leader of the centre-left in parliament.
The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) also rejects Erdoğan's ploy. The pro-Kurdish party is not part of the opposition bloc and is considering fielding its own candidate for the presidential elections, but the party's former leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been imprisoned since 2016, does not rule out supporting the joint candidate put forward by the Table of Six. In any case, it will play a decisive role in the elections. In the best-case scenario, it could even tip the balance between blocs, which would give it an unprecedented political prominence.
Erdoğan has promoted a legal persecution from the institutions against the HDP, which obtained 12 per cent of the votes in the last elections. The government accuses the organisation of having links with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), something that the pro-Kurdish party insistently denies. A few weeks ago, the Turkish judiciary approved the freezing of the HDP's bank accounts precisely because of this issue. The government is desperately seeking its definitive outlawing.
The Turkish parliament and the Electoral Council will have the last word. To call early elections, a three-fifths parliamentary majority is needed, i.e., 360 votes out of 600 MPs. Erdoğan would need 25 more votes from the opposition, which is unlikely to be feasible. The alternative scenario, according to analysts, would be to dissolve parliament and call elections in order to continue running. The manoeuvre is of dubious constitutional legality.