Turkey’s opposition parties drop hints of future cooperation
In expressing support for the reinstitution of a parliamentary system and revisiting the Kurdish question, Turkey’s opposition parties appear to be reaching across ideological divides to counter President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in future elections.
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s next presidential elections are scheduled for 2023, but with the possibility of an early vote ever-present, the nation’s main opposition parties appear to be making moves that signal their possible coordination to challenge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nearly 19-year hold on power.
Recent developments remain far from pre-election campaign strategies, though statements by opposition chairs over the last week have dropped hints the leaders are open to reaching across ideological divides to compromise on several key positions.
In varying degrees, opposition party figures have voiced their support for addressing Turkey’s longstanding “Kurdish question,” or the extension of equal rights to the nation’s 15-20 million Kurdish citizens, as well as support for the return to a parliamentary system, which ended with the introduction of an executive presidency in 2018 after marginal approval through a controversial referendum the year prior.
“All this suggests, I think, [that] opposition parties are blinking at each other in more constructive ways … and the fact that the government is really struggling to keep things under control in domestic and foreign policy helps the opposition as well,” Sinem Adar, an associate at the Center for Applied Turkey Studies in the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Al-Monitor.
