Is Turkey in the eve of a new early election?

It is not secret Turkey has gone through major problems in politics and economy for several years now, to include failed coup attempt in 2016. The tough and often harsh strife between the ruling and opposition parties has not helped to develop a peaceful political atmosphere among Turkish people with various political views and life style preferences.

The current administration of Turkey has had to face some political crisis due to major corruption allegations which head of the ruling party has always named conspiracies. Despite some tough times for Ak Parti, thanks to the influential personality and the image he has been able to create in the eyes of a considerable electorate size the current president and the chairperson of the ruling party has managed to keep his position as the most powerful politician in Turkey. This has proved to be so even despite the major conflicts with Russia, some EU countries and the USA most recently.

However, it is no secret either that things have become even more difficult for Ak Parti and the more so considering new developments such as the establishment of opposing GOOD PARTI (İyi Parti in Turkish) headed by Meral AKSENER, a very experienced lady politician who seems to be able to move crowds.

This being the case, it would be no surprise for AK PARTY and its leader in specific, to consider using an early election opportunity with the positive wind created in favor, due to AFRIN operation of Turkish Armed Forces and the patriotist wind across the nation which could be credited to its leader, obviously. In fact, when it also seems that a new system called “ALLIANCE” which Ak Parti is determined to introduce in the upcoming elections would be in its favor, it would only be an expected move for President Erdoğan (Ak Parti leader) to take the country to early elections to make use of this favorabe political atmosphere.

Indeed, many political experts say this would be quite possible because there are many signs in this direction. They comment that when the following signals are put together for instance, it is not very difficult to see this strong possibility.

• The President has most recently brought the issue of adultery to the agenda which will obviously start another debate and help him create material to communicate to his supporters of rather conservative origin.
• The work to design a model for “An Election Alliance” between Ak Parti and MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) has been completed very quickly. This model is obviously supposed to help two major points; to help MHP leader Bahçeli  (a major and absolute supporter of Erdoğan) pass the electoral threshold of 10 percent – which he otherwise would most definitely fail to do so – and also help Ak Parti to benefit from some other technical points such as increase number of elected deputies etc.
• Afrin Operation on the other hand – as explained above – has created a suitable environment to help the Ak Parti leader to increase votes.
• New major incentives on the agenda of the government, in favor of Turkish farmers.

What the Ak Parti leader would like to do could be to go for an early election in a very quick manner with the support of the positive policial climate he probably believes to be prevailing so as to catch the opposition unprepared and come out of the elections even more powerful to rule the country with a stronger authority.

As to if this could be possible, only time will provide the correct answer. This is not to forget though the Ak Parti leader has not lost any elections so far, except for June 2015 on which occasion he was not able to obtain majority in the parliament.