As journalists who closely follow Turkish politics, we are used to the inner debates and quests for new leaders within the Republican People’s Party (CHP) following every election. But this ritual will be reversed in the morning of June 24 since our eyes will turn to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) this time. No matter what the result is, some accounts will be settled within the party on the day after the election.

There are only a few examples of failure in the history of the AK Party. To name one, the party’s vote share decreased from 46.5 percent to 38.4 percent in the 2009 local election due to the serious economic shrinkage with the effect of the 2008 global economic crisis.  

But this decline did not cause any major intra-party debate despite the resignation of Abdüllatif Şener, one of the co-founders and leading names of the party. The unquestionably strong position of the party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expedited Erdogan’s embarking on a serious restructuring effort within the party.

Afterwards, Erdoğan consolidated his position within the party as the AK Party won the 2010 referendum by receiving 57 percent and then won the 2011 election with 46.6 percent.

However, the attempts to hinder then President Abdullah Gul’s presidential candidacy for the first presidential election with a direct national vote caused some disaccords in the party for the first time. The murmurs stopped when Erdoğan ran for and was elected president, Gül did not make any move to chair the party and Ahmet Davutoglu was assigned as the new chairman of the AK Party.

But in a short while, some groups within the party started to voice their opposition to Davutoglu. Especially a group that gathered around Binali Yıldırım managed to hamper some decisions of Davutoglu in an unprecedented way in the AK Party’s history and culture.

Meanwhile, in the general election held in 2015, the AK Party’s vote share fell to 41 percent and thus the party lost the parliamentary majority under the leadership of Davutoglu. At that point, President Erdogan, who organized rallies and meetings and always spoke in favor of the AK Party during the election campaign period, intervened and operated the Constitutional election renewal rule by showing that a government could not be founded. So, a re-election was held in November 2015, at which the AK Party had a great success by receiving 49 percent and came to power alone again.

To whom must the victory in the re-election be attributed? According to many AK Party supporters, the success was achieved thanks to the President, who did not accept the results of the first election and called for a re-election. But according to another group gathering around Davutoglu, the success was thanks to the persuasion of the President to stay one step behind between June and November and the party’s restoring of factory settings in the meantime.

A few months after the election, Davutoglu resigned from his post as prime minister and from the AK Party leadership after a series of events that have not yet been fully illuminated. The party organized a Congress, in which Binali Yildirim was elected as the new chairman and prime minister. Davutoglu and his team, meanwhile, were completely pushed aside.

An array of splits in opinion and tone played a role in the process leading up to Davutoglu’s discharge from the party, but the two most crucial aspects, in my opinion, were Davutoglu’s raising difficulties in transition to the new executive presidential system and laying claims to the election success in November 2015.

Soon after Yildirim’s assignment to the prime minister’s office, Turkey experienced a catastrophe. On the night of 15 July, 2016, the Gulenist Terror Group (FETO) attempted to stage a military coup to seize control of the country. The insurrection was ruled out thanks to the people who took to the streets to defend democracy, and Turkey underwent a tremendous transformation after that night.

As one of the most significant changes throughout this process, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which had always been the most outspoken opposition party, started siding with the AK Party for the stability and perpetuity of the country. When the MHP gave green light to the new presidential system, the endeavors in this regard were expedited. Eventually, the Constitution was amended and a referendum on whether to approve the new system was held.

The referendum results set a significant indicator displaying the changing political split in Turkey. In the general election held in November 2015, the total vote shares of the AK Party and the MHP were above 60 percent, but the “yes” campaign run by these two parties for the referendum won with a 51.4 percent vote share – with a vote difference less than 1.5 million. The referendum was followed by the June 2018 general election. The two parties ran for the election by forming an alliance on a legal basis. The AK Party declined to the June 2015 levels by receiving 42.56 percent whereas the MHP received 11.1 percent. The vote share of the People’s Alliance was almost at the same level as the “yes” votes in the referendum. (As for the presidential election of the same date; however, President Erdoğan won by receiving 52.6 percent in the first round.)

For Turkey, President Erdogan’s leadership was beyond question; his vote share was more than the sum of all his opponents’ vote share, but that did not apply to his party. The AK Party lost the parliamentary majority and the alliance with the MHP turned out to be an exigence.

This situation seems as the root cause of the problem currently experienced in the AK Party because it is believed by some that the alliance relations have drawn the AK Party’s stance closer to the MHP. This is the argument of some bashful opponents within the party. Nevertheless, the AK Party clearly rejected some demands of the MHP, such as the declaration of general amnesty. But this negative answer would nearly dissolve the People’s Alliance on the eve of the local election.

For Turkey, President Erdogan’s leadership and his vote share are kept separately from the AK Party. The AK Party lost its parliamentary majority and the alliance with the MHP turned out to be an exigence.

The 2019 local election once again verified the 48-52 percent balance, which has been persistent since the 2007 referendum, but the method of calculating ballots employed in the local election is far from showing how the 52 percent is portioned among the parties. So, although the AK Party claims to have a 44 percent vote share, the MHP electorate comprise a part of this share.

The generally accepted opinion suggests that the AK Party’s vote share this time fell under the 42 percent received in the general election whereas the MHP consolidated its power thanks to AK Party voters.

The general decline in the AK Party’s vote share, the party’s loss of Ankara and Antalya municipalities, the decision of re-running the Istanbul mayoral election at the moment when hopes for Istanbul faded… All these developments caused the critical views in the party to be voiced in a more articulate way.

Some have criticized the AK Party’s alliance with the MHP, claiming that the party has moved more in line with MHP’s rhetoric. 

The bitter criticism was issued by former Prime Minister Davutoglu. For him, the convergence with the MHP undermines the AK Party’s values and cause and makes the MHP take advantage of the AK Party votes. Davutoglu abstained from criticizing President Erdogan and called him “our leader” but went on to claim that a group, which he did not specify, surrounds Erdogan and causes him to make mistakes. This criticism is hard to swallow, and it has been uttered by a former prime minister from the AK Party who also chaired the party. As expected, these severe criticisms were met with a profound silence, the ones talking about the criticisms spoke in a low voice. President Erdogan, meanwhile, completely ignored Davutoglu’s manifesto.

But Davutoglu’s remarks led to another rumor. It was alleged that two separate groups within the AK Party were mobilized to form a new party. One of these groups gathered around Davutoglu while the other one gathered around former president Abdullah Gul and former economy minister Ali Babacan.

It will be useful to look at the profiles of Gul and Babacan in this context.

Gül repeatedly expressed his resentment for the attempt to hamper his presidential candidacy with the enactment of a law in 2014. It is also known that Gul and Erdogan had a fall out to the point of no return with their different reactions to the Gezi Park protests in 2013. Subsequently, the reactions they gave to the December 17-25 judicial coup attempts sharpened this split. Gul argued in this context that the threats must be answered within the limits of law and extraordinary legal practices must be avoided, while Erdoğan displayed a strict attitude. So, we have many reasons to believe that a similar divergence might have occurred in the scope of the stance against FETO in the aftermath of the coup attempt.

In Ahmet Davutoglu’s critique against the AK Party, he did not give the name of the President, but rather claimed that there was an inner circle of advisors that were leading to ill-judged decisions being made. 

Because of these splits in opinion, Gul allowed his mention as a joint presidential candidate of the opposition parties in 2018; and in a statement he issued later on, he said that he got such an offer and did not refuse it since he hoped for reconciliation. So, he seemed determined to run against Erdogan if conditions had been suitable. This is also hard to swallow in the AK Party culture. Gul also issued a diatribe against the YSK decision to cancel and renew the Istanbul mayoral election by comparing the decision to the illegitimate 367 ruling of the Constitutional Court that hampered his presidency in 2007.

Babacan, on the other hand, is lying low since he left office. Although he is appearing at iftar dinners nowadays, he does not make any statements, but only smiles to cameras. It is alleged that Babacan will chair the new party that will be founded with the background support of Gul. However, it is a little puzzling how a leadership will be manifested with this habit of lying low that reaches to the point of bashfulness.

As a journalist who has been closely following Turkish politics since the 1980s, has witnessed the birth of the reformist movement within the Virtue Party and its evolution to the AK Party, I can say based on my experience that some trying days await President Erdoğan and the AK Party.

There are rumors that former AK Party members will form a new political party or two. On the one side there’s the possibility of a party with the leadership of Ahmet Davutoglu and on the other, one in the leadership of Ali Babacan with support from Abdullah Gul. 

It is obvious that neither Davutoglu nor the Gul-Babacan duo has any potential to directly target or undermine Erdogan. For this very reason, they prefer to target Erdogan’s inner circle instead of Erdogan himself and hold this circle accountable for the failure.

Therefore, what really matters is the steps to be taken by the President Erdogan rather than Davutoglu’s or Gul-Babacan’s groups.

Erdogan is probably waiting for the June 23 election in order to make a move. (According to a claim, Erdogan implied at his party’s latest Central Decision and Execution Committee meeting that right before the election and after the Ramadan holiday he might send Davutoglu to the disciplinary board with the request of a complete discharge.)

The rerun of the Istanbul mayoral election on June 23 took on new meanings and significance. If the AK Party wins the election, we might see sweeping discharges in the AK Party that will not be limited to the dissident figures in the party. If they lose, the groups who are already expecting to be discharged (for various reasons) might gather and kick off a more widespread intra-party opposition movement.

No matter what the result will be, we will be talking about the AK Party on the morning of June 24.

With almost a month left until the local elections, political parties have put all their efforts to cross the finish line in lead. All parties have made and continue to make efforts to maximize their gains in local administration. While on the one hand local elections dominate the agenda of domestic politics, there is a rising discussion on the possibility of the formation of a new political party on the other. Some political circles imply that former AK Party ministers are about to establish a new political party as an alternative against the government. Even if there have been no official statements made about these allegations, Turkey is nowadays discussing the possibility of the establishment of a new splinter party.

Indeed, Turkey’s political history is full with splinter parties founded as a result of disagreements and intra-party rivalries. The prominent examples of splinter parties in Turkey are the Great Union Party founded by Muhsin Yazicioglu, the New Turkey Party founded by former MPs of the Democratic Left Party, and Turkey Party established by Abdullatif Sener, a former minister of the AK Party currently serving as an MP for the CHP. All of these political parties were divided into various functions due to increasing conflicts and clashes of ideas at the time.

Why has the AK Party never faced any massive intra-party opposition in comparison to other political parties?

Since the AK Party has been in power for 17 years, there have always been some rumors about new splits within the party. However, even if some politicians leave the party because of the clash of interests, there has never been a massive intra-party opposition movement within the party.

Why has the AK Party never faced any massive intra-party opposition in comparison to other political parties? The answer of this question lies behind the powerful and consolidated leadership of President Erdogan, which has been acknowledged by the masses for years. Nonetheless, other political parties experienced some problems in providing consensus and the acknowledgement of the party leadership by society. For instance, both the CHP and Iyi Party have experienced a leadership crisis in the last year, which has resulted in the resignation of some prominent party officials from both parties.

Abdullah Gul, Ahmet Davutoglu, and Ali Babacan have been proposed as challengers of Erdogan’s leadership. Do these names really have the capacity to challenge Erdogan or get mass support?

When it comes to the AK Party, Erdogan’s leadership cannot be challenged by other opposition groups. In the current process, the names of Abdullah Gul, Ahmet Davutoglu, and Ali Babacan have been proposed as challengers of Erdogan’s leadership. Nevertheless, it is a well-known fact that none of these names have the capacity to challenge Erdogan’s leadership or get mass support.

These three names have served in various positions under the AK Party administration. Abdullah Gul served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister, and President. Likewise, Ahmet Davutoglu and Ali Babacan have also served in critical positions in the AK Party governments. After their terms ended, they did not have a serious impact on the dynamics of the party. This means that they could not create their own followers neither under the roof of the AK Party, nor among the voters.

Due to the fact that these names have not provided a statement either supporting or denying the allegations, it is possible to see some mobilization among former AK Party officials. Nevertheless, because of the lack of leadership and support, it is difficult for these mobilized groups to turn into a new political movement against the AK Party. Turkey’s opposition parties, on the other side, will never quit their quest for an alternative conservative party against Erdogan since they cannot perform an effective opposition in Turkish politics.

11 years ago, during this time of the year, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leader and then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared his party’s presidential candidate as “My brother, Mr. Abdullah Gul.” Kemalists poured into the streets with flags in their hands upon the announcement. The daily newspaper Cumhuriyet started a campaign with the slogan “Are you aware of the danger?” They organized “Republican rallies” across Turkey, which set off in Ankara on April 14, 2007, continued in Izmir and Istanbul, and ended in Samsun. The rallies lasted for weeks. An observer viewing how they waved their flags might have easily assumed that they were revolting against a foreign invasion. The protesters were asserting that Abdullah Gul could not occupy the presidential seat as his wife was wearing headscarf, an unspeakable “thing” for Kemalists.

Turkey was under military tutelage at the time. So, the judicial and political bodies of this system cooperated with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to bar Gul’s presidency with the threats of staging a military coup. Led by a judicial member, they showed a constitutional rule as an impediment to Gul’s presidency by subverting its meaning even though it was an articulate rule. They put forward the argument that “at least 367 deputies must be present in the Parliament to elect Gul,” and the CHP boycotted the election.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which staged a “postmodern” coup on February 28, 1997, released an “e-memorandum” on its official website on April 27, 2007. Their addressees received the message. A group of CHP deputies, including the incumbent party chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu, applied to the Constitutional Court for the cancellation of the elections. With a scandalous decision, the court cancelled the elections in line with the message given. For the first time in Turkey, a government did not succumb to the military’s attempt to design the politics in the country and decided to hold early elections. The AK Party had a landslide victory by receiving 47 percent of the vote share and Gul was eventually elected as President.

11 years has passed since then. Those who were then mobilized to prevent Gul’s presidency only because he was from a conservative background and his wife wore a headscarf have lately been mobilized to present Gul as a presidential candidate to run against Erdogan. Also, Gul allegedly demanded behind the scenes that he will run for presidency only if he secures the support of all the oppositional groups, namely the CHP, newly-founded Iyi Party (Good Party), the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and Felicity Party (SP). Kilicdaroglu, the leader of CHP, which is the stronghold of Kemalist and secularist tradition in Turkey, went from door to door and exerted utmost efforts to nominate Gul as the joint candidate of the opposition. He even transferred 15 CHP deputies to Meral Aksener’s Iyi Party over a legal uncertainty regarding whether Iyi Party could meet the requirements to join the elections. The 15 deputies obeyed the order of their chairman and embarked on an ambiguous path.

Akşener remarked that she considered this move of the CHP worth all kinds of appreciation. But the situation of the HDP needed to be calculated more meticulously due to the political agenda. As the HDP deputy Ahmet Turk stated, the HDP’s inclusion in the joint opposition movement will undermine the bloc during the first round, so it is formulated that the former co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas will initially be presented as the HDP candidate and the party will join the bloc in the second round. Their calculations seemed to have been completed. And after the transfer of 15 deputies, Aksener was naturally the one from whom sacrifice was expected. Along with Temel Karamollaoglu, the leader of the SP, the late Necmettin Erbakan’s party who received 0.50 percent of vote at the latest election, Kilicdaroglu asked Aksener to waive her candidacy. But Aksener, known to be a politician driven by her ambitions, responded “absolutely no” to this offer. Thus, the joint opposition bloc they strived to build eventually collapsed on the CHP. The party was confronted by chaos when the names inside the party and among the party base raised their voices since they opposed to Gul’s candidacy.

Kilicdaroglu started looking for a new candidate for Turkey, which will be governed with a new governmental system following the June 24 elections. According to the CHP Deputy Group Chairman Engin Altay, they will announce their candidate between May 1 and 5. According to another statement issued by the party, the main criterion they look for in a candidate is definite although there is not any certain name yet. “A candidate to drive Erdogan mad,” as they put it.

While rushing to present Gul as their candidate, the main opposition party resigned to the sociological reality of Turkey. But as always, it pursued an opportunistic path instead of revising itself in view of sociological realities and issues on Turkey’s agenda, just as they made a strategic partnership with the HDP in 2015. As a result, over the course of the past seven years, Kilicdaroglu’s CHP differed from former party leader Deniz Baykal’s CHP in this aspect: “What is social democracy? Kemalism is over, long live opportunism!” As for Gul, there remains no need to write about his position.

Last week, Turkey’s political agenda was mostly dominated by the opposition parties’ search for a candidate in the presidential elections. Since there was still ambiguity in the opposition parties’ electoral strategy despite the short period of time, leaders of the opposition parties had face-to-face meetings to convince each other about their strategy. The outcome of their search for a candidate reveals that the opposition parties failed to form a broad-based alliance against President Erdogan even if they acted in a manipulative way to do so. Nonetheless, it should also be reminded that the opposition parties will never give up finding a way to unite against President Erdogan until the elections.

The most controversial topic in the search for a candidate was the possible candidacy of former president Abdullah Gul. Even if Abdullah Gul served in high positions within the AK Party before, the Felicity Party proposed his name to other parties and tried to convince them on his candidacy. Although Abdullah Gul has stood aloof from the AK Party since 2014, his acceptance of the Felicity Party’s proposal was quite surprising in view of the fact that President Erdogan took a lot of risks to nominate him as a candidate in the 2007 presidential elections. During the 2007 elections, the opposition parties organized a series of rallies and the military and Constitutional Court tried to prevent holding elections. However, the AK Party and Erdogan stood firm against suppression and Gul was elected as the new president. Thus, his possible candidacy was seen as “betrayal” by the AK Party circles.

Last weekend, Gul conducted a press conference and stated that he would not be a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. Nevertheless, he confirmed that there had been a proposal from the Felicity Party to him and he was willing to accept it if a very strong consensus was reached. As Gul stated, the leader of the Felicity Party, Temel Karamollaoglu, worked hard to convince Kilicdaroglu and Aksener on Gul’s candidacy. Even the HDP was about to join this alliance if the other parties accepted. Although there was not any principle or issue that these parties agreed on and they were ideologically incoherent, they just wanted to form an alliance against the election of President Erdogan under new the presidential system. At the end of the day, this event revealed the clear-cut dissociation between Abdullah Gul and the AK Party.

One of the reasons behind the failure of the Gul project was Aksener’s rejection of backtracking on the presidential bid on behalf of Gul. Due to Aksener insisting on her own candidacy, the broad-based consensus on Gul could not be reached. Both the Felicity Party and the CHP tried to convince her but she rejected to do so. Additionally, the CHP circles showed a great reaction even if Kilicdaroglu had a positive attitude about Gul’s possible candidacy. This process had two prominent outcomes in the opposition site’s election strategy. The first one was the failure of the Gul project. The second one was the failure of having a joint presidential candidate.

Two important strategies of the political opposition failed in the election process. However, this does not mean that the opposition parties will quit searching a way for uniting against President Erdogan and the AK Party. The next two months will be highly crucial in terms of the opposition parties’ new initiations. It can be said that because they failed to do so in the presidential elections, the parties will try to find a way to form an alliance in the parliamentary elections.

As Turkey gets closer to the presidential election date – June 24 – the main historical dilemma of Turkish politics reemerges for the opposition politicians. The dilemma arises from three interrelated weaknesses of the Turkish opposition: the lack of ideological inclusiveness, the lack of leadership and the lack of shared values. The debates about who will be running as an opposition candidate against President Erdogan remains complicated. The strategy that the opposition blocks have embraced for the snap election is an important indicator of the weakness of the anti-Erdogan camp, which is composed of the secularist People’s Republican Party (CHP), the nationalist Good Party (IP, also known as Iyi Party), the Islamist Felicity Party (SP), and the Kurdish nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The opposition strategy is based on three important dynamics, and each one of them, ironically, displays the weakness of the anti-Erdogan camp. The opposition bloc led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu who is the leader of CHP, first and foremost, noticed that the strategy based on only party politics cannot provide a strong leverage to defeat President Erdogan in the upcoming presidential election. Since the first democratic election held in 1950, the percentage of transitivity between different ideological parties has always been quite low in Turkey. On the other hand, the nature of transitivity between the parties located on similar ideological lines is relatively different, and the percentage compared to the first case is higher. Therefore, as the representative party of secular-nationalism in Turkey, the CHP cannot possibly gain any ideological and political ground in elections. For this presidential election, according to the new constitutional amendment, the presidential nominees should pass a 50 percent threshold to win. Thus, the best strategy for the anti-Erdogan camp is to find a presidential candidate who will be able to represent all sects of society.

Abdullah Gul, who was the last president of the parliamentary system before Erdogan, became one of the strongest alternatives for the anti-Erdogan block. However, at the same time, the ideological diversity among the opposition block became the main weakness of the anti-Erdogan camp and prevented them from supporting Gul as a nominee against Erdogan. While the CHP represents anti-Erdogan politics, which constructed itself around the assertive secularist discourse, the IP represents the nationalist right-wing, despite the fact that the party has a good percentage of Kemalist-secular representatives. The ideological position of the SP within Turkish politics can be located within the tradition of political Islam.

The pro-PKK Kurdish HDP in this picture illustrates a totally different ideological performance. To express the matter bluntly, the hybrid political and ideological nature of the anti-Erdogan block could not support Gul as a common candidate. The ideological diversity cannot be the only reason in analyzing the failure of the opposition block. The judgment of Gul among the opposition groups constitutes another determinant factor behind this failure. A potential candidate of CHP, Muharrem Ince, who also run as a candidate for leadership against Kemal Kilicdaroglu in CHP’s party congress, frames Gul as “an accomplice and brother of Erdogan.”

The weakness of the anti-Erdogan camp is not limited with the ideological divergence among the opposition block. The lack of leadership is another factor that shapes this vulnerability. From a historical perspective, the leadership has been an important factor in winning elections, sustaining power and transforming Turkish politics. Erdogan, as one of the strongest politicians and an influential actor, has been winning elections (12 times), maintaining power, and transforming Turkish politics since the AK Party came to power in 2002. The opposition bloc, on the other hand, never brought this kind of leadership into the political arena. The first attempt was in the 2014 presidential election, but it failed. This time, Abdullah Gul was constructed as the leader of the anti-Erdogan camp without the consideration that he could never win any single election as a leader of any political party in Turkey. More importantly, Abdullah Gul, as a political person has constructed his political personality along with Erdogan in Turkey. Other potential candidates on behalf of the anti-Erdogan camp do not also display strong leadership.

In addition to the leadership dilemma, the representation of societal values is another problem for the anti-Erdogan block. This, for sure, is a consequence of the historical and ideological trajectories of Turkish politics. The success of the AK Party is the ability to mobilize the basic values of Turkish society within daily politics. In this regard, AK Party and President Erdogan himself cannot be confronted by a hybrid nature of political discourses constructed by the anti-Erdogan block. For this anti-Erdogan block, there is no coherent political strategy regarding the question of how Turkey deals with current challenges emanating from domestic and regional issues, but an inadequate plan to defeat Erdogan in the upcoming election. At this stage, anti-Erdoganism is far from responding to the challenges of Turkey and has many weaknesses as an opposition strategy.

Some of the French say “Britain has a real democracy under the cover of monarchy, while France has a real monarchy under the cover of democracy.” Thus, it’s not the system of government which determines democracy; it can either exist or not exist in both situations. On the other hand, the French president is the most powerful one on the world, beside the periods of cohabitation. This power and influence becomes more prominent with the president’s individual character. For instance, François Mitterrand was regarded as a demigod. Similarly, former French president Valery Giscard D’Estaing expressed the extent of presidential authority during an interview on his experiences. “The office of the French President holds so much power that you become the most powerful man [completely disregarding the possibility of a women president] in France, which you can understand from the looks of women in the whole of France,” he said. Even though D’Estaing’s perception of presidential power can be regarded more in line with a sexual fantasy, it’s definite that the President of the Fifth Republic has prominent authority and power due to a system that was gifted by Charles de Gaulle. This gift is called the semi-presidential system, and it’s definitely more powerful in comparison with a president in a parliamentary system, however, the odd part is that the French president has more power even than the US president.

“The same person not being both the prime minister and the president is absolutely normal; however, it is also definite that the state can’t be dicephalus,” Charles de Gaulle said at the time, making a distinction between the roles of the president and the prime minister, while signifying that the principal rule was of the president. Regardless of the person occupying it, the office of the prime ministry is nothing but an ornament in France. While saying “a president who abides by the constitution is a man of the people and he is elected to shape the destiny of his people,” de Gaulle has expressed the very essence of the president’s authority. The French President appoints the ministers, has the right to abolish the parliament, determines the country’s foreign policy, and can gather all powers unto himself/herself during the times of crisis.

In France, many amendments regarding the authority of the president were implemented since 1958; however, most of these amendments produced an increase in the presidential authority. For instance, with an amendment in 2000 the president’s term was decreased from 7 years to 5 years and it was prohibited for the president to be elected more than twice; however, as the parliamentary elections were to be held right after the presidential elections, the risk of cohabitation was also removed. In this sense, the president became more engaged in the matters, because cohabitation periods were similar to the coalition between politically incompatible parties, causing the president to be isolated.

We can understand Turkey’s both old and current systems by evaluating the power of the French president. For years, the Ministry of National Education described the president as “ceremonial” in the schoolbooks they prepared and compared with the German president. When we became adults and saw the system functioning, we understood that it was more than just ceremonial. The system of government’s name was always the parliamentary system, since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. Separation of powers wasn’t implemented at the time of Atatürk, the republic’s charismatic founder, and his successor İsmet Pasha had also followed this trend.

After the transition from a single-party system to a multiparty system in 1950 and following the military coup which resulted in the hanging of Prime Minister Menderes, the 1961 constitution consolidated the power of the state institutions against the elected officials. Similarly, the 1982 constitution which was prepared by the junta which orchestrated the September 12 1980 coup, immensely increased the power of the president. It was believed that the tutelage existing since the foundation of the republic could be perpetuated by the president who was elected by the parliament and was under the influence of the military. For many years, they were successful in achieving their aims. As was made clear with the coup that resulted in the hanging of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, no ruling political party, besides the one they supported, would be able to fully control the government.

In the first years of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the Minister of the National Education said “I was powerless in appointing bureaucrats and colleagues in my ministry.” As it required the approval of the president, it was impossible for ministers to appoint their own personnel. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was stonewalling all appointments. This resulted in either the deadlocking of the system or the appointment of a person favored by the president. With the right to veto, the president was the most engaged head of the executive. In other words, the president of the parliamentary system didn’t have less authority than the French president in a cohabitation period.

For many years, these “safety fuses” which were implemented with the 1961 constitution functioned. The Constitutional Court of Turkey made a decision to renew these safety fuses, a decision which would be deemed scandalous in the years to follow. Hayrünnisa Gül, the wife of the presidential candidate Abdullah Gül, wore hijab. This was unacceptable for both the military and the main opposition party. For them, a first lady wearing hijab couldn’t enter the Presidential Palace. Let alone the first lady, a woman wearing hijab wasn’t allowed into the presidential palace ever before, even as a guest! Meanwhile, the smaller parties in the parliament were pressured by the military to not support Gül, even though, according to the constitution, Gül had received enough votes to become the president. With the statements from the military, and the CHP’s, the main opposition party of the time (and still today), appeal to the Constitutional Court, the court decided that the vote Abdullah Gül received wasn’t adequate. The poll was canceled.

This illegitimate crisis, which aimed to block a politician’s way to Çankaya (the location of the old presidential palace) just because his wife wore hijab, and triggered a new development. Previously, there was a president which the military tutelage employed to “shape the upper ranks of bureaucracy and limit politics” and had consolidated power pushing the limits of the parliamentary system. This time, something new happened: to resolve the crisis, the AK Party amended the constitution in 2007. The amendment was put to a referendum and was passed by a simple majority of the public’s votes. The president was now to be elected by popular vote. This amendment in 2007 added a new layer to the president’s power with the clause of “popular vote” by changing the Article 104 of the 1982 Constitution. It could be said that the long effective system backed by the military tutelage, which tried to keep the government’s reigns out of the hands of parties like AK Party, benefitted the AK Party government at the end, despite all the suffering it has caused.

The referendum in October 2007 transformed Turkey into a country that is governed through “a de facto semi-presidential system.” As the rest of the system wasn’t designed with a presidential system in mind, it created crises which the national will had to resolve every time they emerged. This caused the presidency to become “an executive with ambiguous limitations and authorities that could expand according to the characteristics of a person.” In this form, it’s pretty similar to the French system; however, this doesn’t mean that it has no quirks. Both the president and the prime minister are powerful in this system. Beside the ones that could emerge in a time of “cohabitation,” this system is prone to crises even if both of the executives are of the same party!

Even though the international community didn’t understand what was going on, the July 15 coup attempt, which was orchestrated by a parallel and parasitic structure within the state institutions, aimed to reestablish the status quo by deposing the government. Now the government started to fight against this organization which infiltrated the state, while continuing to fight against PKK and Daesh. A state of emergency was declared in Turkey. The AK Party government is now cooperating with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which came to the fore as a result of the political conjuncture, to pass a constitutional amendment.

This amendment is aiming to change the system of government, instead of a full new social contract. It foresees replacing the existing faux semi-presidential system with a complete presidential system. “It is easy to criticize; however, believe me, what he is doing is really hard. He is driving a car and someone intentionally crashes into his car. But he doesn’t stop. While driving, he is repairing his car and he is changing the tires of the car without stopping,” a Parliament member and friend of President Erdoğan said about the man.  Erdoğan, it should be remembered, was sentenced to prison as soon as he emerged as a prominent politician, and faced party closure trials and memorandums that tried to force his policies in a certain direction.

Despite all the illegitimate attempts aiming to depose him, Erdoğan received 51.79% of the votes in the first round of presidential elections and became the president. The highest percentage of votes to be received by any candidate at the first round in Turkey, and one of the highest in the world. The people will vote on the constitutional amendment this spring while Erdoğan keeps driving the car. If it is accepted, Turkey will be governed with a new system.