Status: 01/18/2023 2:11 p.m
In Turkey there will be elections this year – actually in June. But now President Erdogan has announced that he wants to bring forward the presidential and parliamentary elections to May 14. Domestically, he is currently under a lot of pressure.
Early presidential and parliamentary elections are becoming increasingly likely in Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has brought May 14 as the election date into play. The elections should normally be held in June.
In a speech to representatives of his ruling AKP party, Erdogan hinted that the elections should be held earlier. Although he did not give the exact date, he recalled the elections of May 14, 1950, which were won by Adnan Menderes’ conservative DP party. Erdogan has often compared himself to the founder of this party. Now he said that this year’s election should take place “on the same day as 73 years ago”.
Menderes was seen as representing the return of Islamic values to a strictly secular public. He was overthrown by the military in 1960 for undermining the Atatürk reforms towards secularism, sentenced to death in the subsequent Yassiada trials and executed.
Early elections possible by decree
Early elections can be ordered either with 60 percent of the deputies’ votes in Parliament or by decree by the President. Erdogan’s ruling AKP, together with its ultra-nationalist partner MHP, currently only has a simple majority in parliament.
Erdogan, who was first elected prime minister in 2003, has already announced that he will run for the presidency for the third time. According to a survey by the Metropoll institute, the AKP and MHP would not be able to unite a majority of the votes at the moment.
Erdogan is currently under immense pressure domestically, especially because of the economic crisis and the extremely high inflation rate.
Opposing candidates from the CHP
The opposition, which has almost entirely formed an electoral alliance, hopes that the long-term ruler will be replaced. The head of the strongest opposition party, CHP, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, and the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas – both also CHP – are traded as possible opponents of an opposition bloc.