Demotix/Jonathan Raa. All rights reserved.Love him or hate him but Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet again demonstrated his supreme talent as a political operator. In the elections of 1 November 2015, his Justice & Development Party (AKP) obtained a majority in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly, winning 49.4% of the vote - an increase from 40.9% (and 4.5 million voters) from the inconclusive election of 7 June. The AKP is now able to form a cabinet alone. Turkey is more or less in the same position as before the June vote: a powerful, directly elected president driven by limitless ambition in control of the legislature.
What has changed is that he is now in receipt of a powerful new mandate. Formally a non-political figure, Erdogan in practice can direct the policies of the council of ministers. In effect, Turkey has transitioned to presidential rule, even if the AKP is thirteen seats short of the super-majority of 330 MPs required to call a referendum on any constitutional change.
The turmoil and polarisation of recent months in Turkey have played into Erdogan’s hands. The renewed war with the PKK and the hideous bomb-attack in Ankara on 10 October have given credence to an AKP campaign which promised citizens stability and security through single-party rule. As in the lead-up to the 2011 polls, the government’s confrontation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) paid off. Two million voters chose to defect from the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which saw its share slashed from 16.3% to 11.9%, and the number of its seats drop by half.
