“The sun is about to set, we need to make a decision before it gets dark,” Cemil Cicek, speaker of the Turkish Parliament and member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said today [May 3], as the Erdogan government’s patience runs thin in trying to persuade the members of the parliament’s Constitution Reconciliation Commission (CRC) to forge a new contract between the state and the citizens — as the AKP sees fit.
The 12 CRC members started their work to draft a new constitution in May 2012. This historic parliamentary commission is composed of three deputies from each elected party — AKP, Republican People’s Party (CHP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).