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.
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