Turkish Politics: The Overlooked Scenario
With Turkish general elections in exactly three weeks, what could be better for my first official post at Economonitor (if you don’t count my introduction) than some pointers for the elections.
David Rogovic and Oritse J. Uku do a great job summarizing the main points at the Europe Weekly over at Roubini Global Economics. There is no reason for me to repeat their main points, so I will make a couple of additions to their analysis before going over the “overlooked scenario”.
First, note that the AKP would need 2/3 majority to change the constitution in the Parliament. Even under extreme scenarios (the main opposition CHP stuck at 25%, the nationalist MHP not making the 10% threshold, BDP sending less than 30 deputies to the Parliament as independents), it is still virtually impossible for the AKP to get so many seats.
That’s why David and Oritse mention 60% as the key number: If the AKP gets that many seats, then they will be able to send their new constitution to a referendum. But even getting the required 330 seats is a challenge for the AKP: Most polls I trust put the party at slightly less than 50% and CHP in the 25-30% range. It is true that the Kurdish BDP does not have enough votes to pass the threshold, but that’s why their candidates are running as independents. With the MHP barely passing the threshold and the BDP sending about 30 or so deputies as independents, plus a few “true independents”, the AKP would still be unable to reach the magical 330. In essence, this is not so bad, as it would require the AKP to seek consensus on the new constitution.
All these scenarios are more or less discussed by Turkish columnists as well as Turkey economists. But one downside scenario has been off everyone’s radar so far: The CHP doing really bad. If they get around 25% of the votes or less, they would be seen as mostly unsuccessful. This could lead to internal strife in the Party, where party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had recently consolidated his power by purging the old guard. In essence, failure in the elections would give the dissidents in the party an opportunity to try to purge Kilicdaroglu.
To me, Turkish social democrats are like amoebae; they also multiply via division, so there is a good chance that they would end up divided after this “civil war”. As a result, for the better or the worse (I would say it is for the worse, but I am no political analyst), there would be no opposition party to check up on the AKP.
How likely is this scenario? A couple of polls I trust do show the CHP at around 25%. So the question is whether these polling companies are right or not? And also 25% is my own subjective view on the threshold that would deem CHP unsuccessful. I am not sure of the actual level that would lead the CHP dissidents try out a coup. But I still think this scenario deserves to get more thought in the next few weeks…
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