Will elections ease Turkey’s crisis?

The party winning Sunday’s elections will have many problems to solve, writes Kirsty Hughes.

As Turks head to the polls on Sunday (22 July), the big question is not only who will win, but will the elections resolve the ongoing Turkish political crisis? Elections were called early in Turkey after leading military figures issued an ‘e-ultimatum’ at the end of April and the opposition Social Democrats (CHP) boycotted parliament, both in protest at the attempt by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) to elect a president - Abdullah Gül - whose wife wears a headscarf.

Opinion polls have varied in the final weeks of the campaign but most point to the AKP getting the largest number of votes, possibly more than the 34% it got in 2002 - many polls suggest it could get around 40%. But the unreliability of the polls, combined with the Turkish voting threshold of 10% for parties to enter parliament, makes it very hard to predict how many seats the AKP, CHP and others may get in parliament.

One big question is whether the AKP will get a majority of the seats and so form a one-party government again. Only the AKP and CHP were represented in the last parliament, but the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is likely to win seats this time, as are a number of Kurdish independents. Less likely, but not to be ruled out, is that other parties could slip in over the 10% limit.

Cengiz Aktar, an Istanbul academic and commentator, predicted a "rather comfortable majority" for AKP. Istanbul-based journalist Nicole Pope agreed. "A single AKP government is the most likely outcome, but there will probably be more than two parties in parliament, which means that the AKP will have a reduced majority," she said. "This might be the best outcome because it would ensure that the AKP wouldn’t be able to change the constitution on its own [which needs a two-thirds majority vote] and therefore reassure the Kemalists that the regime isn’t under imminent threat."

A smaller majority would also push the AKP to agree with other parties on electing a new president (also a two-thirds majority vote) and so resolve that ongoing stand-off. But Selma Acuner, an academic and women’s activist in Ankara, doubted whether parties were serious about reconciliation. "Although the AKP and CHP are making statements for reconciliation on this issue," she said, "I am not sure if the political culture prevailing will allow for reconciliation…But I think that the newly elected MPs will not be eager to have another early election so an agreement may become possible."

Aktar said that he was concerned about possible "arrogance" by a victorious AKP on solving the crisis over the presidential election: "What will the AKP reaction be, if it’s a landslide?"

Bahadir Kaleagasi, Brussels head of Tüsiad, the Turkish business federation, said that stable government was the most important outcome: "What matters for the business community is that…elections are held as usual in a peaceful way and we have a stable government. [Then] we will be happy, because all political parties are wise enough to see the real goals once the elections are over - adopting democratic reforms, the economic reform agenda and the EU process."

But many see an AKP government as the best chance for ongoing reform despite some doubts on its Islamist background.

"The CHP and MHP have no programme, they mouth slogans of nationalism and national sovereignty…but no one takes them seriously," said Aktar.

Yet, a coalition government is another possible election outcome - a ‘grand coalition’ between AKP and CHP, or a ‘Kemalist’ coalition between the CHP and MHP, or even some deal between the AKP and Kurdish independents.

Selma Acuner said that Turkish civil society would, irrespective of the result, push for more democratic reforms including "reducing the 10% voting threshold, establishing internal democracy in the political parties and quotas for women’s representation".

The EU as an issue has had a low profile during the electoral campaign, but a new government will find it rising up the agenda again. In order to improve Turkey’s chances to join the EU, the new government will face internal and external calls to move forward on democratic reforms, including scrapping or amending the notorious article 301 of the penal code on the basis of which writers insulting Turkishness can be prosecuted.

The AKP is for many the best hope for pushing the EU process forward. The question is whether its leader, current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will put EU-inspired reforms back on his agenda after the election.

"Erdogan said a while ago that the EU process would resume with renewed energy after the elections. We’ll see if he sticks to it," said Pope, adding that "right now the EU simply isn’t an issue any of the parties really want to highlight. It doesn’t win many votes. The PKK [the Kurdish separtist group] is a more pressing issue and the government is under strong pressure from the army to do something in northern Iraq."

Whatever government starts to take shape as the election results become clear on 23 July, it will have a complex internal and external agenda ahead.

• Kirsty Hughes is a freelance writer based in London.

The party winning Sunday’s elections will have many problems to solve, writes Kirsty Hughes.