Yet Another Addendum to This Week’s Column: An Economist Supports the Economist!
I still have a few things to add to this week’s Hurriyet column, which also appeared at the blog.
First and foremost,venerable polling firm KONDA revealed its latest poll today (actually it was supposed to be revealed tomorrow, but it seems to have been leaked through one of their customers):
June 11 May 11 Difference
AKP 46.5% 49.5% -3.0
CHP 26.8% 26.5% 0.3
MHP 10.8% 10.8% 0
Kurdish BDP 6.7% 4.0% 2.7
Others 9.2% 9.2% 0
My friend Ozlem Derici at Erste Securities put the numbers in to her election model (I had one of those in my Citi days as well, but I am too lazy to update it), she came up with the following seat distribution: 320 MPs for the AKP, 149 for the CHP, 39 for the MHP and 42 independents, 37 of which are actually Kurdish BDP candidates running as independents to bypass the idiotic 10% national threshold. Before I get on with interpreting these results, two points are in order: 1. I have worked with KONDA in the past, putting an economic touch to their reports. So I know first-hand that they do a very good job and satisfy the must-haves of polling such as a representative sample and face-to-face interviews. And BTW, they were right on target at the 2007 an 2009 elections. Therefore, I take their findings very seriously. 2. Revealing poll results has been banned by the High Elections Board since the end of May, if I am not mistaken, but polling firms continue to reveal their results. I am not accusing KONDA of breaking the law; they are just obeying the rules of the game, but this is what happens when you make up silly laws and then don’t make sure they are followed.
Anyway, coming back to the results, this is the scenario that the Economist and your friendly neighborhood economist had labelled as “ideal”. A not-too-strong AKP that would have to build a consensus Constitution and therefore not feel obliged to pork-barrel. But I am now noticing that our approach may have been a bit too simplistic: The AKP could as well strike a deal with the BDP to pass the criticial 330 MPs to send the Constitution to the referendum, by simply putting a few articles to their liking. In other words, they then would not really need a “consensus” Constitution, just a pro-Kurdish one:). Then, the AKP would still spend like there is no tomorrow to pass their Constitution, as the MHP and the CHP are likely to be vehemently opposed to it. Speaking of my thinking, Nomura published a research piece on Monday, which was, more or less in my lines of thinking, and Citi has a detailed piece, where they go over different elections scenarios and their market implications.
BTW, Turkish economy is continuing to draw a lot of attention: I gave two more phone interviews this week, one to Spanish daily El Pais and another to Forbes India. I will share them at the blog once they are published.
As for the promised guest column on the political party election programs, it should be up tomorrow.
3 Responses to “Yet Another Addendum to This Week’s Column: An Economist Supports the Economist!”
RogoCop • June 9th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Great post Emre. Look forward to seeing the election results on Sunday.
Any idea on how quickly the AKP could try to introduce a new constitution? I assume it takes some time to draft it, and more time to bring it to a vote. So I'd assume not before 2012?
economopoulos • June 9th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
The chances of AKP trying to strike a deal with the Kurds for a new constitution are close to zero, if you are following their election strategies and campaign rhetoric (e.g. with Erdogan claiming they would have hanged Ocalan, if they were in power in 1999). If the seat distribution you labelled as 'ideal' materializes, I think the most likely scenarios are either 1) Erdogan abandons his plans for a new constitution altogether or 2) he tries to woo a bunch of conservative MPs from MHP to get the 330 votes he needs.
edeliveli • June 10th, 2011 at 11:21 am
@Rogocop: 2012 is good estimate, but not later than early-2012 at the latest, as High Elections Board might rule Gul's term is up in 2012 (rather than 2014). @economopoulos: Yes, but everyone knows he is doing it to steal MHP's votes and keep them below the 10 percent threshold. So I wouldn't be surprised if he u-turns after the elections, esp. if he needs the support of MHP after the referendum. But wooing MHP candidates is a possibility as well, esp. if it turns out he will only need a few extra votes to reach 330.
