Turkey's newly re-elected Justice and Development Party had hoped that parliament’s recent vote of confidence in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cabinet would be a powerful reminder of its landslide victory in last month’s general election. Instead, it has become a symbol of a deepening political crisis that could hinder constitutional reform.
Before Turkey’s parliamentary elections in June, many Kurdish politicians saw the government’s constitutional reform initiative as a chance to advance their community’s decades-long struggle for broader cultural and political rights. Now, with six elected Kurdish candidates barred from taking their seats in parliament, Kurds are reconsidering the need for changes in Turkey’s constitution.
After retaining control of parliament with nearly 50 percent of the vote, Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party remains fixated on introducing a compulsory Internet filtering system later this summer, even in the face of mounting criticism.
Turkey’s June 12 general election saw the pro-Kurdish movement score its biggest-ever parliamentary victory, with an increase from 20 to 36 seats in the country’s 550-member parliament. Ironically, though, the triumph comes as hopes for a peaceful solution to meeting Kurdish demands are fading.
Finishing a distant second in a Turkish parliamentary election is no easy task for a party created by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. With 25.9 percent of the vote in Turkey’s June 12 elections, however, the People’s Republican Party (CHP) is learning to lick its wounds and carry on with an attempt to reinvent itself.
Turkey’s governing party swept to an historic landslide election win on June 12, but failed to gain enough parliamentary seats to rewrite the constitution without help from its opponents.
Turks go to the polls on June 12 for a parliamentary election all but certain to deliver victory for the ruling Justice and Development Party. Yet amidst divisive nationalist rhetoric and threats from Kurdish militants, fears of increasing authoritarianism and warnings of an overheating economy, much else regarding Turkey’s future is shrouded in doubt.
In the run-up to Turkey’s June 12 parliamentary elections, Turkish newspapers have been full of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “crazy” plans for massive infrastructure projects. Concrete will change everything. Or so the message goes.
As Turkey’s June 12 parliamentary elections draw nearer, public attention is focusing on how a set of explicit videos involving politicians from Turkey’s third largest political party, the ultranationalist MHP, are influencing voting preferences.
