{"id":28839,"date":"2016-12-10T21:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T21:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=28839"},"modified":"2016-12-10T21:00:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T21:00:04","slug":"turkey-moves-another-step-towards-one-man-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/turkey-moves-another-step-towards-one-man-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey moves another step towards one-man rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and its keen new ally The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have submitted their bill<\/a> to parliament to amend the country\u2019s constitution, \u00a0Turkey has taken another leap in its march to authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

Signed by every deputy of the 316-strong governing party, the draft constitution, nevertheless, needs at least 330 votes of the 550-seat General Assembly to go to a referendum. Hence, the hard-nosed negotiations with the ultra-nationalist MHP to jump that hurdle.<\/p>\n

The 21-article constitutional change, if goes through, will mean a regime change for Turkey.<\/p>\n

President Erdogan was justified to refer to it as “the beginning of a new era\u201d.<\/p>\n

When it comes to a vote at parliament, the ballot will be secret, but no one doubts the party whips\u2019 tried-and-tested ability to get full compliance. The party grandees are already warning their deputies that the failure to support the changes will be perceived as \u201ctreason\u201d by their supporters.<\/p>\n

The first and foremost aim of the package is to expand presidential powers, or to be more precise, legalize and consolidate sweeping powers already exercised by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<\/p>\n

The constitutional overhaul proposes that the president shall be the head of the executive, and the prime ministerial post will be abolished. \u00a0The president should be able to retain his position as the head of his own political party.<\/p>\n

The executive president would have the sole authority to appoint one or more vice-presidents, government ministers and high level officials.<\/p>\n

The executive president and the parliament would have a precarious relationship. The president could dissolve parliament and a parliament with a two-thirds majority could impeach the president, but such a move would also trigger parliamentary re-election.<\/p>\n

The bill envisages the number of parliamentary deputies to be increased to 600 from 550 and the minimum age for becoming a deputy would be cut to 18.<\/p>\n

The bill also proposes wide-ranging structural changes to the country\u2019s judicial system, which is described in the bill as \u201cindependent and impartial\u201d.<\/p>\n

There will be no military courts, except for the military\u2019s own internal disciplinary cases.\u00a0 The Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) would become smaller. Half of the 12-strong board would be appointed by the president and the other half approved by parliament.<\/p>\n

The changes proposed by the bill will be examined most closely by international legal experts. This is the area where Turkey comes under the strongest criticism.<\/p>\n

Only this week, The Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors were suspended by The European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ) for no longer being \u201csufficiently independent from the state\u2019s executive and legislature branches\u201d.<\/p>\n

More importantly, the legal advisory body of the Council of Europe, known as the Venice Commission, published a damning opinion<\/a> on December 9, criticising Turkey for abusing state of emergency laws declared after the 15 July coup attempt.<\/p>\n

The proposed overhaul of the constitution is presented to the public as a step to uphold \u201cTurkish nationalism and to protect the state\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even though there has been no consultation or public debate, and the main opposition People\u2019s Republican Party and the Kurdish-affiliated Peoples\u2019 Democratic Party have been completely side-lined, the bill will most likely be approved by the parliament and put before the country.<\/p>\n

The referendum is planned sometime before next May and the presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in 2019.<\/p>\n

The best way to guarantee success for the president and his party would be to maintain or heighten tensions in the country until the referendum. Presenting people with a choice of instability or support for the ruling party has worked well before.<\/p>\n

The stakes are even higher this time and everyone should brace themselves for a tough and unpredictable few months to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and its keen new ally The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have submitted their bill to parliament to amend the country\u2019s constitution, \u00a0Turkey has taken another leap in its march to authoritarianism. Signed by every deputy of the 316-strong governing party, the draft constitution, nevertheless, needs at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28842,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28839\/revisions\/28842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}