​Coalition alert: Turkey heading for early elections

TURKEY - In Brief 12 Aug 2015 by Atilla Yesilada

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Turkey’s secularist bastion Cumhuriyet daily newspaper claimed that CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told delegates from left-wing labor unions that Erdogan has sabotaged the coalition talks and the break-down may be announced as soon as Thursday. I’m linking the Turkish news item here. While the Turkish press is not always the most reliable source, a series of developments experienced yesterday caused me a sleepless night, leading me to revise my estimate of the odds for early elections to 75%. I assign no odds to an AKP-MHP deal. Essentially CHP will have to eat humble pie and accept AKP’s conditions to secure a government. First, Erdogan announced that at the end of the 45 day period, he will definitely abolish the parliament. Afterwards, Davutoglu warned the press that no break-through ought to be expected on Thursday. This means that as far as AKP is concerned the coalition talks will drift into the week of 17-23 August, just too close to the Erdogan-imposed deadline. If the talks were to fall through, Davutoglu will not have any time for convincing MHP, which has any way excluded itself from coalition attempts. Last night I watched CHP deputy chairman Mr. Enis Berberoglu who claimed that CHP is tired of AKP’s delaying tactics and will call it quits, unless the party receives a firm offer on Thursday. Clearly Davutoglu is not yet in a position to make that offer. Yet, there are much bigger reasons afoot for AKP to prefer reelections over a government with CHP. According to ORC and A&G (very reliable) polls, up to 75% of party voters object to a coalition with CHP. Four polls by A&G, ORC, SONAR and Andy-Ar now put AKP at 43-44%, just within 1-2% of reaching the kind o...