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Roundup: Turkey's ruling party faces more challenges ahead of June elections

Xinhua, May 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Although still in the lead, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is facing stronger challenges from the opposition parties ahead of June 7 parliamentary elections.

The AKP, already shaken from corruption scandals since December 2013, is put on defense in the election campaign by the opposition that has announced major economic and social packages to address growing woes in unemployment, soaring food prices and consumers' difficulties in paying loans and debts.

Turkish analysts believed the AKP will still keep the lead in the elections but are not certain that the AKP will be able to win a super majority to change Turkey's regime into executive presidency, a long-held dream for the country's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Depending on the outcome in terms of the distribution of the seats among four major parties in the parliament, the AKP may not even be able to establish a single party government.

"According to various opinion polls, if an election were held today, the AKP would come to power again, even though its vote would see a decline from around 45 percent to about 40 to 42 percent," Ankara-based Turkish analyst Lale Kemal said.

"But the possibility that the AKP vote may go down even further, forcing a coalition government to be set up after the June elections, cannot be ruled out, either," she added. It depends on whether the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) will be able surpass the 10 percent election threshold that is applied nationwide.

In the first scenario, the AKP will win roughly an additional 70 deputies if the HDP fails to exceed the threshold. That means the AKP will secure at least 330 seats in the parliament to introduce a presidential system.

According to Yavuz Baydar, observer of Turkish politics, this possibility seems to have little chance.

"An average of polls published in the past five to six weeks indicate that the HDP remains above the critical 10 percent threshold," he noted.

Another possibility is that the AKP may gain enough seats to establish a single party government which requires 276 seats in 550-member parliament but falls short of 330 that is needed to constitutional change.

The last scenario is that the ruling AKP fails to win 276 seats against the increased percentages the opposition parties acquire in elections, forcing it to seek a coalition partner.

Baydar warned, however, that the election is very much open-ended and there are a lot of variables that may affect the outcome.

A survey conducted by Gezici Research last week put AKP at 38.1 percent, a fall of some 1.7 percentage points from January survey.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) received 28.5 percent, while the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the third major party in parliament, received 18 percent. The HDP polled at 11 percent in this survey.

Another polling company Metropoll owner Ozer Sencer said the ruling AKP roughly polls at 42 percent and HDP at 10.4 percent.

"The election outcome will be determined by the performance of the MHP and HDP," he said.

"If the HDP exceeds the threshold and the MHP gets around 16 to 17 percent, the ruling AKP will have no chance to establish a single party government," Sencer underlined.

The main issue Turks pay attention to is the economy, and the opposition parties have been poised to take advantage of voters' discontent with the government.

The MHP on Sunday unveiled its election manifesto with promises for improving the situation of economically disadvantaged segments of society, such as hikes in the minimum wages and expanded subsidies.

The main opposition CHP has already proposed a comprehensive economic program that covered minimum wage earners, pensioners, and tax deductions.

"The CHP has finally realized that the best way to campaign against the AKP is to prioritize bread and butter issues instead of falling into the trap of polemical polarization," Brookings expert on Turkey Omer Taspinar said.

The Metropoll survey in April concluded that 57 percent of respondents believe the economy has been mismanaged in recent times as opposed to 33.9 percent.

On Monday, the Turkish Statistics Institute announced the inflation rate hit 7.91 percent year-on-year in April, exceeding expectations. The soaring food prices are the main driver of the increase in the inflation. Endit