Turkey’s Game-Changing Election

The outcome of Turkey’s parliamentary election on June 7, 2015, will mark a pivotal moment for the country’s future. Postelection scenarios include, at one extreme, a move by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to centralize power in the presidency and, at the other, the possibility of a coalition government after twelve years of single-party rule.

In this Q&A, Marc Pierini and Sinan Ülgen walk through the fundamentals of Turkey’s critical vote and explain its high stakes. Pierini and Ülgen say that the election is marked by several divisive issues, including the peace process to settle Turkey’s Kurdish problem and the integrity of the country’s democracy. Yet perhaps the defining feature of this election is that the outcome, for the first time in over a decade, is clouded in uncertainty.