Roundup: Turkey election campaign kicks off, candidates announced

Political parties in Turkey have announced in succession the candidates for the parliament election on June 7 to secure more seats, kicking off a two-month long election campaign.

More than half of the legislators in the current parliament were not nominated by their parties and many hopefuls who applied to become candidates were frustrated as their names were not picked up by their leaders.

Turkish analysts said there are no strong appealing figures in the lists in any political party and they do not see high-profile new names that will provide a big traction for the political parties.

"The lists of the four main political players, containing hundreds of names, fail to create enthusiasm about the future," Yavuz Baydar, a Turkish expert on politics, said.

The election is critical for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that has been in the power for since 2002.

Recent polls suggest that the AKP has lost support due to corruption scandals, economic woes and troubles in foreign policies.

However, the party still leads the polls with around 40 percent on average among different polls.

It is not a cut-and-dried issue that the ruling AKP will be able to secure enough seats in the election to secure a single party government.

If it fails to win 276 seats out of 550-member Turkish parliament, the AKP will be compelled to seek a coalition partner to establish a government.

One of the main drags on the AKP is the open interference by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is supposed to stay neutral and independent, according to the Turkish constitution.

Erdogan, former chairman of the governing AKP, has to a great extent shaped the nominees' list, analysts said.

"There are a few surprises, but in general we see an Erdogan-dominated list, with some openings for Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu," Suat Kiniklioglu, Turkish analyst and former member of the parliament, said.

He added the defining characteristic of the AKP group in next parliament is its loyalty to the party's uncontested leader, which is Erdogan.

Mustafa Sentop, AKP's deputy chairman, also publicly acknowledged Erdogan's role in the preparation of the ruling party's list, saying that the president has headed the party for long years.

Demirtas described Erdogan's unending interventions into Prime Minister Davutoglu's affairs and decisions in the party and government as a disadvantage in the elections.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) selected its candidates mostly through primaries, which was hailed as transparent, open and democratic in contrast to others.

Turkish expert Murat Yetkin praised the CHP's method of running primaries, saying some two thirds of its candidates have been selected through the practice.

"The CHP is aiming to increase its votes from 25-26 percent to 30 percent," he noted.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has not made big changes to the list of its existing members of the parliament.

Moreover, analysts said whether the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) will be able to pass the national threshold of 10 percent to enter into the parliament will determine the distribution of seats in the next parliament.

Serkan Demirtas, Ankara-based Turkish analyst, believed that there is no doubt that the HDP will be the main determiner of the Turkish political environment after June 7.

He pointed out that the HDP is trying to mobilize its grassroots all around the country to garner enough votes to pass the threshold.

"To this end, it has enriched its lawmaker candidate list with strong names as well as figures from social democratic and socialist backgrounds in order to reach different political groups," Demirtas noted.

The nationalists, the third major party in Turkey, has been increasing their votes steadily since 2011 elections because of the government's stalled peace talks with the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

Kiniklioglu believed the MHP will benefit from the AKP's decline, as most skeptical AKP voters tend to switch to the MHP rather than the CHP.

The MHP is currently being polled at a range of 17 to 20 percent.

The list of party candidates submitted to the election board is not definite and is subject to revisions. They will be finalized on April 20 and published in the in the Official Gazette on April 24. Endit