Turkey's nationalist opposition
made clear on Friday it would not roll over and back a minority
government, making President Tayyip Erdogan's aim of taking the
country to a snap election with the ruling party in control look
increasingly difficult.
Talks on forming a grand coalition between the AK Party and
the main opposition CHP broke down on Thursday, making an autumn
election almost inevitable and leaving the ruling party having
to turn to the nationalist MHP for support.
The uncertainty comes as the NATO member faces an almost
unprecedented confluence of national security threats, battling
Islamic State insurgents on its borders and Kurdish militants at
home. The lira currency hit a record low on Friday and stocks
were little recovered after sharp falls the previous session.
The AKP failed to hold its majority in a general election on
June 7, leaving it unable to govern alone for the first time
since it came to power in 2002 and plunging Turkey into
uncertainty not seen since the fragile coalitions of the 1990s.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday urged parliament
to call for a new vote as soon as possible, apparently hoping
for an agreement with the MHP that would allow his government to
stay in power until the new election takes place.
But the MHP said it had no interest in propping up an AKP
minority administration.
"That would be a minority government. We would reject this,"
MHP vice chairman Mevlut Karakaya told Reuters, saying that
unless the AKP was prepared to accept nationalist conditions for
a full coalition there was little point even negotiating.
Davutoglu has until Aug. 23 to broker a deal or else Erdogan
will have to call a new vote and an interim "election
government" will be formed, with cabinet positions divided
proportionally among the four parties in parliament.
"Erdogan does not want to go there, because that would mean
power sharing, and holding the elections with a government not
under AKP control," said Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at
Carnegie Europe and head of the Istanbul-based EDAM think-tank.
"That is his least-desired scenario."
An "election government" would hand cabinet posts not only
to the CHP and MHP, but also the pro-Kurdish HDP. Senior AKP
officials had been betting that the nationalists, virulently
opposed to greater Kurdish political power, would do anything
possible to avoid such a scenario.
But the MHP appears to be calling their bluff, arguing that
such a power-sharing government would be required if no deal is
reached, while it would refuse to serve alongside the Kurds and
would turn down the posts allocated to it.
The political uncertainty handed the lira currency another
battering, sending it to a record low for a second straight day,
and prompting the central bank to step in and tweak some policy
tools in an attempt to shore it up.
The lira is already one of the worst-performing
major emerging market currencies this year, and analysts have
said they expect further losses.
A senior AK Party official said a meeting was expected with
the MHP over the weekend or on Monday, but that there was little
chance of the two parties reaching a coalition agreement.
The MHP has made the full abandonment of a peace process
with Kurdish militants and curbing Erdogan's influence over
daily politics two of its core conditions, neither of which the
ruling party is likely to compromise on.
"The coalition option doesn't seem to be on the table due to
the MHP's attitude," the AKP official said, describing a
November election as the "most likely and realistic" option.
Erdogan is hoping that a new vote will enable the AKP to
regain its majority. He has made no secret of his ambition to
change the constitution and create an executive presidential
system akin to France or the United States, a move that would be
virtually impossible without a strong AKP majority.
Two recent polls have suggested the ruling party, whose
roots are in Islamist politics, could recover its majority and
govern alone if the vote were held again.
But as Turkish warplanes bomb Kurdish militant targets in
northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey, it is unlikely to claw
back much support from the Kurdish minority, meaning winning
over religiously conservative nationalists will be key.
That is something MHP leader Devlet Bahceli knows all too
well, strengthening his hand in the negotiations. Seeing Kurdish
politicians in ministerial positions would enrage his core
supporters, bolstering his own election chances and ensuring
they turn their backs on the AKP.
"It serves Bahceli's purpose more to see the HDP acquire
cabinet positions under an election government," said Ulgen.
"They want to be able to criticise AKP and Erdogan from the
sidelines ... and use that in their election campaign. They
actually want Erdogan to call early elections. That's the MHP's
strategy I think."
REUTERS