Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cemented his position as the nation’s paramount leader through at least 2019, as the Islamist party he founded won an unexpectedly sweeping election victory and signaled it might move to enshrine the president’s dominance in a new constitution.
Sunday’s vote ended a five-month interlude in Erdogan’s 13-year rule, leaving the Justice and Development Party (AKP) back in control of Turkey’s parliament and the president firmly in charge on issues from the war in Syria and peace with Kurds to the restructuring of a slowing economy. Financial markets surged on the prospect of a stable government, while many analysts warned of the longer-term risks associated with undiluted power.
Erdogan was not even up for re-election, yet remained the central figure in Turkey’s second campaign this year, after the AKP lost its majority in a June ballot. Since then, the country has resumed its war with Kurdish separatists and suffered a wave of Islamic State attacks. While the violence alarmed investors, it appears to have persuaded voters to seek stability in a return to single-party government, one whose center of gravity has shifted toward the president’s office.
“Erdogan has consolidated his power and will definitely try and have a parliament vote for a new charter to introduce an executive presidential system,” Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, an Ankara-based think tank, said by telephone.
If that proves impossible, he will continue to operate a de facto version, Ozcan said.
Under Erdogan’s successor as prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, the AKP won about 49 percent of the vote and 317 seats in the 550-member legislature, according to preliminary results. That is short of the 330 needed to change the constitution and boost presidential powers, though Erdogan adviser Yigit Bulut said hours after polls closed that the government might try anyway.
Erdogan’s critics say the president is already running the country from a post that has traditionally been ceremonial and neutral, chairing Cabinet meetings and exerting influence over party appointments.
“There will be concern over the lack of checks and balances over the next Erdogan administration — inevitably, he will dominate the next government, even without formal executive powers,” Nomura International PLC London-based credit strategist Timothy Ash said in an e-mailed note.
Abroad, Erdogan and Davutoglu have supported rebels battling to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and clashed with the US by refusing to back Kurdish fighters taking on Islamic State militants. Turkey has also emerged as a key player in Europe’s refugee crisis, winning concessions over visas and membership talks from the EU in exchange for promises to help stem the flow of migrants.
The Kurdish party whose breakthrough performance in June helped strip the AKP of its majority saw its vote decline on Sunday, after a near-blackout in local media and a government campaign to highlight its links with the armed rebels. The nationalist MHP saw its number of seats drop by half, while the biggest opposition group, the secular CHP, registered a small increase without breaking out beyond its core supporters.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)