The talks on forming a ruling coalition in Turkey, which have been continuing for a month and a half, have ended in failure. On August 18 the President of the Republic Recep Tayyip Erdogan, withdrew the mandate to form a new government from the incumbent prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Today the head of state announced new parliamentary elections in the country. They are to be held on November 1st.
Vestnik Kavkaza sought the opinions of Turkish political scientists about what the results of the second parliamentary elections in less than half a year might be.
An expert of the Center for Strategic Studies of Turkey, Orhan Bilge Gafarli, noted that it is difficult to give a prognosis at present, "because in Turkey the situation is changing every 24 hours, there are new developments." "But today there is such a situation that after the terrorist attack in Suruci, public opinion adheres to the nationalist sentiment," he added, noting that another consequence of the July explosion will be the fact that in the conditions of an operation against Kurdish extremists "it will be difficult to hold elections in the eastern regions. "
The political scientist did not rule out that against this background, "the ruling AKP party will conduct common nationalistic and anti-Kurdish propaganda, in connection with which it is likely that it will be able to improve its June result to 43-45%."
In turn, the political analyst Hakan Aksay noted that "according to all the studies, as a result of these elections which will take place, if there are no extraordinary events on November 1, the result will be very similar to the result of the last elections on June 7." "Perhaps the number of votes for all the parties will change by 1-2%, plus or minus, but the results will be very similar. If it is so, Erdogan won’t get the result he is waiting for. One-man rule of the ruling party will not happen,’’ he expects
"Most importantly, it seems that Erdogan pins his hopes on the fact that in the light of the recent bloody events, the terrorist attacks and the various operations, the Kurdish party will lose popularity and will probably not overcome the 10% barrier. But so far there is no such trend, on the contrary Erdogan's party is losing votes in the Kurdish regions and cities in the east and south-east of Turkey. And the party of the Kurds is strengthening its position. And what can happen for the balance to change, what does Erdogan count on, though he is also aware of all of these studies ? We do not know. Now, every day at least a few people are dying on the Kurdish side, and on the side of the police and soldiers. This is a very disturbing situation," Hakan Aksay concluded.
