After 14 years in power, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the representative of radical Islam in Turkey, has finally focused on its main objective: a regime change to install a one-man rule. A set of constitutional amendments, drawn up and brought to parliament by the AKP, needs the support of at least 330 deputies in the 550-member legislature to make it through. The ruling party, which holds 317 seats, hopes to pass the bill with backing from the 40 deputies of the Nationalist Action Party, which shares nationalist and Islamic values with the AKP. Should the bill get the necessary support in the upcoming vote, it will be put to a referendum within two months’ time.

If approved, the amendment will legitimize the de facto executive presidency that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is already exercising, while handing him a number of powers that currently belong to the legislature, the prime minister's office and the judiciary.

Under the draft, the president can be the leader of his or her political party and determine its candidates in parliamentary elections, dissolve parliament, draw up the budget, issue legislative decrees and veto bills passed by parliament. In the judicial realm, the draft entitles the president to appoint the chair and six of the 13 members of the Judges and Prosecutors Board as well as 12 of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Court. In terms of executive powers, the president would be entitled to appoint the ministers and senior bureaucrats (including ambassadors), shape educational and military institutions, approve international agreements, determine national security policies and declare states of emergency. As commander in chief, the president will also bear on how the country’s armed forces are used.

According to the draft, the president can serve three terms and use all his or her powers without any accountability. He or she can only stand trial at the Constitutional Court if as many as 400 deputies in the 600-member legislature vote in favor of such a move.