The major reason behind Davutoğlu's decision to step down is the chronic problems in Turkey's system of government that muddies executive authority between the prime minister and the president
If what is happening in Turkey had taken place elsewhere, the economy would have been in freefall and a political battle would have ensued. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, whose Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had won 49 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election six months ago, announced on Thursday that he is stepping down from his post. Following lengthy consultations with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and senior party officials, he called for an extraordinary party congress on May 22 and delivered a well-received speech to announce his decision.
The AK Party comes from a political tradition that rarely exposes its internal discussions to the public. Since the party's rise to power in 2002, there have been a number of disagreements and confrontations among the party elite and, with a handful of exceptions, everything took place behind closed doors.
This is exactly why so many people are wondering why the outgoing chairman, who won a landslide victory in the most recent election, opted to step down.
People who closely follow Ankara's political circles, however, were hardly surprised when news of Davutoğlu's resignation hit the wires. Columnists and talking heads have been talking about the same factors behind the prime minister's departure for nearly a week.
Routine problems such as differences of opinion over key appointments and tensions over the language adopted on flagship policies could have been overcome with relative ease. As such, it is not worthwhile to focus on who said what. The problem had always been deeper and structural.
Turkey's system of government was the main reason why Davutoğlu decided to step down from his post. No matter who is in charge, the parliamentary system inherently fuels tensions between players.
To be clear, the problem became more visible since former Prime Minister Erdoğan became Turkey's first popularly elected president in August 2014. Traditionally a ceremonial office, Erdoğan has transformed the presidency into a political powerhouse in recent years. Overnight, the country ended up with two strong executives in the prime minister, who leads the Cabinet, and the president, who serves as head of state.
At this point, Turkey's system of government has become so radically transformed that it is virtually impossible to determine where the president's jurisdiction begins and the prime minister's turf begins. The largely obsolete Constitution has turned Turkey into a car with two steering wheels driving down the highway at 150 kilometers an hour. If we hit a curve, the country would go into a skid.
Keeping in mind that the current situation is unsustainable, Turkey has no choice but to debug and upgrade the system to meet the country's needs. To accomplish this task, there are two options available to the country's people.
We will either revive the Kemalist status quo along with the military guardianship regime by tasking Parliament with picking the president - in other words, backtrack on the 2007 constitutional amendment. Or we will push the political system's transformation to its logical conclusion by formally adopting a semi-presidential or presidential system.
To be clear, the AK Party has been a vocal supporter of Turkey's imminent transition to presidentialism, which it included in its draft constitution proposal. The outgoing prime minister, likewise, repeatedly came out in support of the transition. According to senior party officials, Davutoğlu disagreed with everyone else concerning the time line, as he wanted to hold off constitutional reform until 2019, at the end of his term instead of pushing for immediate change,. As such, it would appear that the AK Party has just taken a big step to expedite the constitutional reform process, which means that Davutoğlu's successor will not only run the country, but also work on a system upgrade.
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