Why did it become controversial?
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The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that parliament should focus discussions on a new constitution, in the wake of his party’s election victory at the weekend, according to the Guardian newspaper. Why don’t they respect the (Turkish) national will? Forced to choose between security and freedom, he said, “they chose security”. The President who this time (unlike in the June elections) had kept himself away from public appearances and rallies, exclaimed that the electorate had “given proof of their strong desire for the unity and integrity of Turkey”.
Yes. The election of June 7 produced the country’s first hung parliament since 1999. The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) had gained enough seats to deny the AKP the majority for the first time in more than a decade. As I explained in an earlier article, Erdoğan took a gamble by rejecting the option of forming a coalition government in favor of calling snap elections in November. The Istanbul Stock Exchange jumped 5% on 2 November. Between March 2003 and June 2015, Turkey was largely peaceful, but this situation changed dramatically after the elections that produced the hung House.
Daily clashes have been reported between PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army in and outside Kurdish southeast, after a two-year ceasefire was broken in July. The PKK used IEDs to blow up military convoys. Ankara said that at least 102 people were killed and over 500 wounded in the attacks.
Mr Erdogan also vowed there would be no let-up in the military campaign against Kurdish rebels, one of the key security challenges for his new administration after a wave of tit-for-tat violence left a truce in tatters.
“Bloody attacks aimed at creating an atmosphere of fear and chaos before the parliamentary elections were prevented”, it said. With the voter turnout as high as 85 percent the AKP’s performance matches its best results. That relationship was destined to collapse – after all the Islamic State seeks a new caliphate in the Middle East and the government in Turkey is, by the Islamic State standards, an apostate.
In recent years, Mr Erdogan has angered most of Turkey’s Western and regional allies, including Israel. Clearly, the people still have confidence in AKP founder and current President Erdogan’s ability to deliver on issues of concern to them. Turks paid no heed to the “sensitivities” of the West and the parties of the opposition, and voted in favor of stability even if this is achieved by methods that are extremely autocratic.
The Kurds, a large and restive minority inside Turkey, are a particular burr under the country’s saddle.
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Erdogan can be expected to renew his bid to consolidate power in his own hands. AK is just 13 parliamentary votes short of the 330 it needs to call a referendum on altering the constitution, and it may be able to get them from the ultranationalist MHP party. The peace initiative President Erdogan initiated a while ago to end 30-year long Kurd insurgency lies in tatters with fresh outbreak of hostilities between the government and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). That about one in nine voters switched parties defies reason. The European Union has proposed financial aid and faster membership for Turkey in the hope of winning its help.
