​Farewell to Davutoglu..and parliamentary democracy

TURKEY - In Brief 04 May 2016 by Atilla Yesilada

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At the day the EU Commission proposed lifting the visa barrier to Turkish citizens, president Erdogan decided to dismiss premier Davutoglu, denying him the biggest victory of his brief career and demonstrating convincingly that parliamentary democracy is dead in Turkey. To remind readers, Erdogan is not AKP chairman, neither does he have the authority to choose premiers, but he calls all the shots. While the official announcements will be made today after the 11:00 party executive committee meeting, AKP is expected to hold an extraordinary convention at the end of May, or the first week of June, where Davutoglu will probably not run again. There are several candidates to replace him at the party post and as PM, but the short list consists of current Cabinet spokesperson Mr. Numan Kurtulmus, Justice Minister Mr. Bekir Bozdag, head of the Constitutional Affairs Committee Mr. Mustafa Sentop, the Infrastructure and Telecoms Minister Mr. Binali Yildirim and Energy Minister and Erdogan’s son in law Mr. Berat Albayrak. For reasons I hope to explain in the upcoming Weekly Tracker, I don’t believe any of these names save Mr. Kurtulmus has the wherewithal to run the party and Cabinet. I also want to find out the ultimate crime of Davutoglu which led to his dismissal above and beyond “general unruliness”. If it is his lackadaisical support of the new constitution-cum-the presidential system, this means the new PM would be required by Erdogan to submit a hasty proposal to the Grand Assembly by late January or early July, forcing a referendum vote. If the Grand Assembly rejects the proposal, AKP might choose to call snap elections, benefiting from the turmoil in nationalist MHP and...