The rhetoric of a “new and civil constitution” and “liberation from the coup constitution,” frequently voiced by ministers appointed by President Erdoğan and AK Party officials since 12 September 2023, is not resonating with the public. The weakest point of Erdoğan’s discourse is the ambiguity regarding the reasons behind proposing a new and civil constitution.
I have no intention of targeting Mehmet Şimşek, the Minister of Treasury and Finance. Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) members are already doing that enough. Despite the defeat in the March 31 elections, they act as if President Tayyip Erdoğan wasn’t the sole decision-maker and they had done everything right, still claiming, “If we
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with his ruling partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader, Devlet Bahçeli, at the Presidential Complex on May 10, marking a significant encounter amidst ongoing political dialogues against the backdrop of calls for political ‘normalization’. The 1-hour meeting between Erdoğan and Bahçeli followed their last rendezvous on April 29. The last
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion to lower the presidential election threshold from 50+1 percent to 40+1 percent and to make it a single round, further clarifies that his easy re-election in 2028 is the main aim of the discourse on a new and civil constitution he started on the 12th of September at the Ulucanlar museum.
Could the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who failed to crack open the “once in a century window of opportunity” before Turkey, be looking to permanently close this window after shattering the opposition, intent on dismantling them, in the 2023 elections, and turn Turkey into an elective autocracy where the elections, too, are unjust?