Post-election Erdogan cannot regain power he lost
If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushes for snap elections, he may be disappointed with the results.
There is a quasi consensus in Turkey that the June 7 parliamentary election results have ended President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dreams of the executive presidency, introducing an increasingly authoritarian one-man rule. The election results have restrained Erdogan's ambitions and brought optimism that Turkey’s democratic experiment could ultimately be successful. Turkish democracy proved that it is much more resilient than many thought prior to the elections.
Erdogan’s dreams were shattered on June 7, but no sane mind in Turkey ever thought that the president would respect the election results and continue to function within the constitutional limits of his post. According to the Turkish Constitution, the president does not have executive powers. If not all, the overwhelming majority of the observers, including those who know him well, were sure that Erdogan would try to fight back to regain his lost power with an unmistakable survival instinct.
According to some, primarily non-Turkish, observers, he can. Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution ended his essay titled “Down, but not out: The essential resilience of Erdogan and the AKP” as follows: “Demonstrating that coalition governments are less stable and effective is what Erdogan may now be hoping for. Some Turkish voters may already be feeling buyer’s (or seller’s) remorse. One post-election poll suggested that the AKP [Justice and Development Party] would increase its vote share from 41% to 45% if snap elections were held.”
However, what Hamid says is totally incorrect as the “one post-election poll” he cited was held by a staunchly pro-AKP company. Having not much credibility, its findings — allegedly based on a June 8 poll — did not get much attention from the Turkish public.
