Turkish Opposition Strengthens its Alliance Against Erdogan with a “Electoral Document”
Sources in the Turkish opposition revealed that 6 parties opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are discussing general principles to empower their alliance before the presidential and parliamentary elections, which Turkey will witness in June of the year 2023, if the country does not witness early elections before this date.
The six parties, namely the Republican People’s Party, which is the main opposition party in Turkey, the nationalist “Good” and “Democratic” parties, the Islamic “Happiness” party, the “Future” and “Democracy and Construction” parties, are scheduled to agree to sign the agreement. A document stipulates in one of its clauses Turkey’s return to the parliamentary system if the opposition wins the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, a source in the Republican People’s Party told Al Arabiya.net.
This document stipulates limiting the executive powers of the president and the period during which he will rule the country, and the necessity for him to relinquish the presidency of any party when he wins the presidency, in addition to lowering the electoral threshold to 3% and the necessity of the independence of the judiciary and educational institutions, the strengthening of democracy, the separation of powers and the freedom of the media, according to what he revealed to “” Al-Arabiya.net, a source in the Republican People’s Party led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
This agreement will serve as “electoral principles” for the six parties, and it is likely that it will be discussed with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, which is the third largest party in the country, but this party is not a party to this alliance so far, despite the occurrence of meetings between its leaders and officials from these parties. parties.
So far, consultations are continuing between the six parties, including two new parties that were established after their leaders split from the ruling Justice and Development Party led by Erdogan, which seeks to prevent his former allies Ahmet Davutoglu and Ali Babacan from participating in the upcoming elections. The first leads the Future Party. The second leads the “Democracy and Construction” party, both of which oppose the current president of Turkey.
In conjunction with the consultations of the six parties, the Turkish president is trying to make changes in the electoral and party laws to prevent the Davutoglu and Babacan parties from participating in the upcoming elections, in addition to his attempts to ensure that his party or candidate wins the presidency, by asking him to cancel the requirement to obtain more than half of the votes (50 +1) to win the country’s presidency after opinion polls showed the decline in his party’s popularity and the impossibility of obtaining more than half of the votes.
Under Turkey’s current election law, a political party cannot enter parliament if it does not obtain 10% of the total votes cast in parliamentary elections. But the six parties want to reduce this percentage to 3% so that the Davutoglu and Babacan parties can enter parliament, which is a prerequisite for the leaders of both parties, to join this alliance, according to what a source in the “Democracy and Construction” party revealed to Al-Arabiya.net.
However, the Turkish president has not taken any actual steps to amend the election and party laws so far, but his ally Devlet Bahceli, who leads the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, wants to impose a new constitution for Turkey, which means amending many laws in the country, including those related to elections. and parties.
