The incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and successive Justice and Development Party (AK Party) governments are credited with landmark improvements and innovations in Turkish politics. The opposition, weakened with multiple defeats in the past two decades, appears more united than ever and is bent on reversing and removing the gains democracy and counterterrorism efforts achieved. As Türkiye heads to critical presidential and parliamentary polls on May 14, the centralization of governance, which streamlined bureaucratic obstacles and efforts to root out terrorism, is at stake.
The six-party opposition bloc, led by presidential candidate and Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu primarily aims an end to the executive presidency system. Their road map clearly promises to end it. Kılıçdaroğlu, who assembled a ragtag team of opposition parties from the obscure Democrat Party (DP) to the nationalist Good Party (IP), as well as the party of a former prime minister from the AK Party, campaigns for "democratic change" against what he calls the "one-man regime." Instead of an executive presidency, he pledges a new system with an apparently infinite number of men. The bloc already unveiled plans to assign heads of six parties as vice presidents of Kılıçdaroğlu if they win the elections. Kılıçdaroğlu also recently announced that he would have the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, who accompany him to campaign rallies, as his vice presidents after the elections.
In its 240-page program, the alliance vows to abandon the presidential system Erdoğan introduced after winning a hard-fought constitutional referendum in 2017. The opposition wants to restore a parliamentary system under which lawmakers elect a prime minister and have oversight over ministries. The president would be limited to a single seven-year term.
"Changing the political system will not be easy," Bertil Oder, a professor of constitutional law at Istanbul's Koç University told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Such changes require a three-fifths majority in Parliament, which the opposition will struggle to win on May 14, she pointed out. The CHP is the second biggest party after the AK Party and managed to retain a large number of seats in Parliament despite successive defeats. Yet, its allies have a rather small voter base and some even accepted to field candidates under the name of CHP for parliamentary elections.
According to a recent poll by survey company Areda, the AK Party garners 41.1% of the vote. The CHP follows it with 25.4%. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which will compete under the name of the Green Left Party (YSP) in the elections, still has above 10% of the vote, far ahead of parties in both the opposition alliance and People’s Alliance led by the AK Party. Another poll by survey company Sonar shows AK Party would win 38.2% of the vote in parliamentary elections versus CHP’s 24.2%.
The opposition bloc also promises to release prominent names jailed in the past years, although itself claimed Erdoğan or the government intervened in the judiciary process for their incarceration. Among those they plan "to release" is Osman Kavala, a businessperson convicted of orchestrating the notorious 2013 Gezi Park riots in Istanbul. They also seek the release of Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), who is accused of inciting the 2014 riots that killed dozens of people across Türkiye. The HDP is known for its affiliation with the terrorist group PKK. It is unclear how the bloc would convince voters of its member IP, which is known for its nationalist stance and fierce opposition to terrorist groups. IP has been largely quiet about the pledges voiced by Kılıçdaroğlu, while one of its prominent lawmakers resigned over a secret alliance with the HDP. The HDP itself announced earlier this week that they would openly endorse Kılıçdaroğlu in the elections.