Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan poses for photos with children in commando uniforms as he addresses the members of his ruling party at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. DepoPhotos/Press Association. All rights reserved.Despite months of insistent denials, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for early parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in June 2018 instead of November 2019. Hours after his announcement, Turkish parliament extended the state of emergency through July, the seventh such extension since the failed coup attempt.
By bringing the election forward by more than a year, analysts posit that Erdoğan is trying to get ahead of a downturn curve in Turkey’s fortunes that could impact his standing in the near future. The call seems to have come at the request of his ultranationalist ally, Devlet Bahçeli of the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi - MHP), in a culmination of the situation forced upon the government due to Turkey’s military incursions in Syria and the country’s growing economic woes.
Apart from the required second round of voting following its failure to form a government after the 2015 elections, the ruling Justice Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) has never called for an early election since coming to power a decade and half ago; and the party repeatedly rejected growing speculations that they would call them this year.
