May 14. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Turkish polling stations have opened at 8:00 a.m. (7:00 a.m. in mainland Spain) for presidential and parliamentary elections that are crucial for the political future of the country, a vote in which the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aspires to a new term against Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, backed by a coalition of opposition parties.
The date of the vote, in which 62 million Turks will participate, is highly significant since the elections coincide with the centenary of the founding of Turkey as a secular republic under Kemal Ataturk, while on May 14, 1950 they were held elections in which the Republican People’s Party (CHP), currently led by Kiliçdaroglu, suffered a severe setback.
Erdogan, the Turkish politician who has led the country’s politics for the longest time – nearly 20 years between his tenure as prime minister and then as president – is facing what could apparently be his biggest challenge at the polls, with some polls giving Kiliçdaroglu the advantage of the vote.
Despite the fact that the president seemed certain of heading for another victory when he opted to advance the elections, the deepening of the economic crisis — including inflation of more than 50 percent blamed in part on his refusal to raise interest rates — and the devastating earthquakes registered in February in the south of the country — which left more than 50,000 dead in Turkish territory — have affected their aspirations.
THE VOTING SYSTEM
Turkey went from a parliamentary system to a presidential one in July 2018 as part of a reform promoted by Erdogan himself, which implies that the president is directly elected by universal suffrage, while the figure of the prime minister was eliminated.
Thus, a candidate needs to collect more than half of the votes to win in the first round, while a second round would be held in two weeks between the two most voted if none of them accumulates a sufficient number of votes on February 14. May.
On the other hand, the Turks will have to elect the 600 members of the Grand National Assembly, the official name of Parliament, through a system of proportional representation. To win seats, a party has to pass the seven per cent ballot threshold or be in an alliance that passes this threshold, which has caused these coalitions to gain increasing weight to prevent smaller parties from being unrepresented.
In this case, four minority parties have joined the National Alliance –headed by Kiliçdaroglu’s CHP and the nationalist IYI Party (Good Party)– to increase their chances, while six other parties compete under the alliance led by the HDP, which also includes Izquierda Verde.
The reforms promoted by Erdogan also imply that the president is the one who chooses the government, so if his coalition, the National Alliance, fails to maintain a majority in Parliament, it could face problems implementing its policies in case to get a new mandate.
This new mandate for Erdogan would also come amid complaints of unconstitutionality by the opposition, since it would be the third -something prohibited by the Constitution-, although the Electoral Commission ruled that the counter was reset to zero in 2018 after the application of the reform of the system after a referendum.
