Again Snap Elections in Turkey?

• 01.19.2017, 13:16
•  Region,  Near East,  World

APA/EPA/STR

Discussions on holding early elections in Turkey has intensified last week. Moreover, the issue was raised by the ruling as well as the opposition parties. It should be noted that the possibility of holding early elections was actively discussed before the vote on constitutional changes in Parliament. "If the text of the amendments to the Constitution does not pass through Parliament before the spring, there will be a necessity of holding early elections, although no one wants," said Mustafa Shenton in an interview with Anadolu Agency. The Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose party undertook to support the ruling party to implement the constitutional changes, has also talked about the possibility of holding snap parliamentary elections. 

But after the Parliament voted on putting the constitutional changes in a referendum, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that "elections are to be held in 2019 as planned. There is no need to cause uncertainty over the stability of the country by making snap elections the country's current issue,” Daily Sabah  reports. All this speaks about the fact that the authorities, as well as the opposition party, called for early elections, in fact, to threaten to the Majlis MPs, that they may lose their seats, if they don’t support the changes. And as the results of the voting shows, it worked pretty well, and the constitutional changes that guarantees to establish one-man rule for Erdogan, will be put to a referendum in the spring of 2017.

In any case, despite holding early elections in the current situation is not justified for Turkish authorities, but such a possibility should not be excluded. Today it is difficult to clearly indicate what will be the results of the referendum. A series of terror attacks in recent times were a serious blow to the government's reputation: they showed that the authorities, despite the drastic measures taken have not been able to resolve the issue of national security. The change of the policy on Syria was also a blow for the reputation of the government.  In addition,  the main opposition Republican People's Party, which was quite careful after the coup attempt, fearing charges of involvement in Gulen movement, has is quite active discussions on constitutional changes. All this can lead to the fact that Erdogan does not have the expected outcome of the referendum. In such conditions it is not excluded that the Turkish authorities will resort to an adventure, and snap elections will take place in Turkey.