High stakes at the polls: Turkish Elections 2015

Turkey’s parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place on 7 June, will almost certainly see the Justice and Development Party (AKP) claim yet another win. However, the AKP’s precise margin of victory is more open to speculation, and it is this margin that could have a profound effect upon the shape of Turkey’s political system. Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been touring the country in recent weeks in an attempt to secure a 60 percent majority for the AKP that would allow them to propose amendments to the constitution and make concerted steps towards replacing the current parliamentary system with a presidential one. This would mean a further entrenchment of Erdogan’s personal power and, Erdogan’s opponents would argue, greater authoritarianism. With the AKP boasting a strong electoral track record, opposition parties have resorted to employing risky strategies in a bid to see the ruling party fall short of the necessary 60 percent majority.

The AKP has dominated Turkish politics since 2002 and, despite a drop in support during the 2009 local elections, strengthened its share of the vote from 46.6 percent in 2007 to 49.8 percent in 2011, gaining 312 parliamentary seats. However, the upcoming elections may reverse this trend. President Erdogan’s public image was tarnished by the Gezi Park Protests in 2013, in which 11 people died and over 8,000 were injured. In 2014, violent anti-Erdogan protests took place in Istanbul and Ankara after a number of high-profile public figures connected to his government were implicated in corruption probes. Many of the underlying drivers of this unrest have yet to be properly addressed, and anti-Erdogan sentiment may push some voters away from the AKP. Recent polls support this notion, showing a decline in support for the AKP that gives Erdogan no guarantee of attaining his desired majority. 

Central to the AKP’s prospects is uncertainty over the Kurdish vote. Turkey’s Kurds make up approximately 18 percent of the population, representing a substantial portion of the popular vote. Although the Turkish electoral system is based on proportional representation, parties are required by law to attain a minimum threshold of 10 percent of the popular vote in order to enter parliament.

In the past two national elections, Turkey’s Kurdish representatives have run as independents, thereby avoiding the 10 percent rule applied to parties and gaining themselves a limited number of seats. However, in November 2014, Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), announced that his party would run as a unified front in the 2015 election for the first time since 2002.

The move is a risky one. The growing support for Kurdish candidates in recent years suggests there is a real chance that the HDP may rise above the 10 percent threshold. However, the HDP does not automatically claim total loyalty from Turkey’s Kurdish population. For instance, the AKP has made significant progress in drawing Kurdish support due to its initiation of peace negotiations in 2013 with the Kurdish militant separatist movement – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). 

If the HDP fails to reach the 10 percent threshold, their seats will be allocated proportionally to larger parties; in this scenario the AKP would gain substantially more seats than the electorate has granted it. As anti-Erdogan sentiment mounts, particularly in traditionally left-leaning areas such as Izmir, an AKP win at the expense of smaller parties such as the HDP may provoke a significant public backlash. However, more critically, an HDP loss would open up the real possibility that the AKP may exceed the 60 percent mark required to initiate changes to the political system, and to formally centralise power in Erdogan’s office. 

With so much at stake, the build-up to these elections has been marked by tensions unseen in previous years, and the AKP’s political opponents have reportedly been subjected to frequent harassment. Erdogan has been accused of a crackdown on independent media outlets that criticise the government, and has reportedly used legal monitoring bodies to block public access to information. HDP has also been targeted in violent attacks, with two separate bomb blasts on 18 May wounding seven people at HDP offices in Adana and Mersin. A presidential system under Erdogan would likely see the continuation of authoritarian trends, with further restraints imposed upon political opposition. In this light, amidst growing anti-government sentiment and a deteriorating economy, the HDP’s gamble could result not only in a massive win for the AKP, but potentially in a radical impact on the future prospects for political stability and democracy in Turkey.