Turkey’s Game-Changing Election

What sets this election apart from others?

Pierini is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on developments in the Middle East and Turkey from a European perspective.

What’s at stake sets this election apart—the future of Turkey’s political system and the fate of the Kurdish peace process.

Erdoğan’s main objective is for the AKP to secure three-fifths of the seats—330 out of 550—in the Turkish assembly. This is the number needed to organize a referendum on constitutional amendments designed to introduce a powerful executive-style presidential system in Turkey.

Erdoğan’s campaign narrative is almost entirely geared toward achieving this presidential system. His stature makes this objective the de facto central focus of the current election, but this goal has drawn the opposition of all other political parties, as well as some discontent within the AKP itself.

A related and equally important outcome of the election will be the clarification of the future relationship between the presidency and the executive. If the country adopts a presidential system by referendum, the current president will be greatly empowered. On the contrary, if the election brings about a thin majority for the AKP or a coalition government, the executive will be strengthened, to the detriment of the president.

The future of the talks on a settlement of the Kurdish problem is also at stake, as a result of the HDP’s high-risk decision to run as a political group. If the Kurdish party fails to meet the 10 percent electoral threshold, ballots cast for the party will be proportionally redistributed in every electoral district among other groups represented in the legislature. That will mean huge gains for the AKP.

The HDP’s absence from the Turkish parliament could ensure the three-fifths majority that the AKP needs to initiate a constitutional referendum. At the same time, the disappearance of Kurdish representation in the parliament could lead to civil unrest in Turkey’s southeast, where the Kurds are primarily concentrated.