Sapanca, Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party on Monday that Nicosia was “looking to you” during a policy retreat in the lakeside town of Sapanca. He also referred to a range of cities across the region as looking to his party for hope and support.
Erdogan addresses AK Party retreat
Speaking to party members, Erdogan said, “Rest assured, you are Gaza’s only hope. You are the hope of Damascus, which is rising up, of Aleppo, which is being reborn from its ashes, of Mogadishu, Khartoum, Beirut, Tripoli, and Tripoliania. Remember, Nicosia, Baku, Sarajevo, Skopje, Prizren, Baghdad, and Basra are looking to you.”
He added that the AK Party is “a movement which receives the prayers and support of not only our own people, but also of hundreds of millions of our brothers and sisters in our shared cultural geography”.
Comments on the party’s legacy
Looking back to the creation of the party nearly 25 years ago, Erdogan said, “we opened a brand-new chapter in Turkey by founding the AK Party”, adding that the party “introduced many innovations to Turkish politics” and “transformed Turkey”.
He said the party “brought a new path, a new and original perspective to the political institution” and that it had approached consultation differently by placing it “at the very centre of our style of politics”.
Speculation over early elections
The 25th anniversary of the party’s founding will be marked on August 14. Some circles have suggested that the date and a planned celebratory event may be used to launch early presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey.
Under Turkey’s current constitution, Erdogan cannot run for re-election if the next presidential vote is held at the end of his current term, which is currently set to expire with an election foreseen for May 7, 2028.
If parliament calls an election before that date, his current term would not be considered fulfilled, allowing him to stand again.
Parliamentary arithmetic
An early election would require the consent of 60 per cent of Turkey’s 600-member parliament, or 360 MPs.
At present, Erdogan’s government commands the support of 328 MPs, made up of 277 from the AK Party, 46 from the ultranationalist MHP, four from the Kurdish Islamist Huda Par, and the vote of Onder Aksakal.
Opposition turmoil
Although the government has almost two years remaining in its current term, this year may be the optimal time to call an election, given the opposition’s current disarray.
CHP leader Ozgur Ozel has been removed from his role by a court decision, while the party’s presidential candidate Ekrem Imamoglu is in jail.
Ozel’s removal and the installation of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, whom Erdogan defeated in the 2023 presidential election, as party leader have triggered a crisis inside the CHP, followed by a series of local mayors leaving the party.
