The Outcomes and Surprises of Early Election of Turkey

Nineteen month earlier than its legal time, under the emergency status of the country, for the first time in the history of Turkish republic; both presidential and parliamentary election held in June the 24th 2018. Due to the acute division of the politics and people in Turkey, The result was almost clear that Ruling Party of President Erdogan, the APK and its allies, especially Nationalist Movement Party, the MHP, will gain majority of votes. that coalition named as people’s agreement list (Cumhur Ittifaki) that gains 53.7% of the votes, 42.6% to the AKP and 11.1% to the MHP. On the other hand, the main secular opposition of republican people Party, the CHP, New established ‘IYi Party’ Good Party, the former female minister and MHP member, Meral Aksener and an Islamist party; Felicity Party SP; made a coalition named Nation Agreement; Millet Ittifaki that gained 33.9% of the national votes, For the CHP 22.6% and for the ITYI Party, 10.0% exactly and for SP only 1.3% of the national votes. The third and most radical party that has been into the race was the Peoples’ Democratic Party; the HDP which is a pro Kurdish, pro Democratic party. The HDP gained 11.7% of the national votes.

For the presidency that was most important part of the election this time, Receb Erdogan, and Muhherrem Ince, as the two main individual that are representing both Millet and people coalisions; were the main two candidates in the race of election. Same as his Party, the former co-chair of the HDP, Selahettin Demirtas has been candidates by his party while he spend almost 20 month in his prison and had a very limited chance to run his campaign.

The outcomes are clear as we can see, president Erdogan has been reelected with 52.6% of the national vote, he soon declared his victory and promised to start practicing the program of his campaign, he emphasised his struggle agains terrorism especially against the PKK and Gulen’s movement that he named as FETO. Muherrem Ince gained 30.6% and he soon accepted his defeat and asked Erdogan to be the president for all 80 millions people rather than his voters only. In the third level, Demirtas gained only 8.4% of the votes which is less than the votes of the HDP. The victory of the AKP and the MHP was one of the surprises of the election. While the AKP has lost more than three million of the votes and almost more than 20 seats. the MHP which was split into two party recently, still gained 11.1% and passed the ten percent threshold which was beyond all expectations. IYI Party has gained 10.0% was another surprise. Thus, both MHP and IYI party gained at least 21.0% of the votes; that was again beyond the expectation in deed. The CHP under kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is the leader of the party for the last four elections has diminished more and more. Therefore, the chance of Ince to be the leader of CHP is higher than ever and son Kemal must leave the office of the CHP leadership. The story of the HDP was another point to be looked at. Under a hardship of detaining thousands of its members and almost more than half of its leadership including 52 mayors, 14 members of Parliament and both former co-chairs of the party; still they have gained a huge victory by passing the threshold of ten percent. Another surprise of the HDP voters, it increased almost half a million of the votes only in Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara; Three main western cities of Turkey. As a pro Kurdish party, the HDP was putting the big bet of becoming a party for all Turkey and the state is pushing so hard to link the HDP with terrorism and making it only a Kurdish and the legal wing of the PKK. But this election made the HDP again more national party and without the votes of the west of Turkey, The HDP wouldn’t make it into the national Assembly.

What is so important from now on, is how to pursue the politics by Erdogan and especially how to tackle the economic crises? despite the slight confidence and showing a little positive reaction by the market stake holders in Turkey; Yet the future of the government and managing the politics doesn’t show good news. This time in the Parliament, there are more than six parties that are very much ready to confront each other’s projects. none, of AKP and Erdogan cannot fully implement their plans due to the parliament division and fractions conflict. More importantly, under the big economic crises and reducing the value of Turkish Lira; the state cannot implement most of the civil and investments plans. The greed and ambition of Erdogan to gain the leadership position in the Middle East and the Islamic world was not getting close by winning the national votes. More dangerously and close than anytime ever, the possibilities of operating the Coup is not small at all. The forthcoming days and months will make the analysis more clear.