reported<\/a> it selectively. State broadcaster TRT headlined its news item as \u201cEU praises Turkey on migration policy\u201d.<\/p>\nAs if the EU no longer has any leverage on Turkey, The National Security Council advised to extend the state of emergency for another three months, for the seventh time since the attempted coup.<\/p>\n
On the same day, the real surprise, for many, came from Devlet Bah\u00e7eli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).<\/p>\n
Mr. Bah\u00e7eli, claiming the country was under growing external threat and could not hold off until the scheduled date of 2019, called for a snap election this year, on August 26.<\/p>\n
The ruling AKP, despite repeatedly dismissing the prospect of an early election up until now, said that they would, indeed, discuss the suggestion. \u00a0President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan is scheduled to meet Mr. Bah\u00e7eli on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It is not clear whether Mr Bah\u00e7eli\u2019s move was in conjunction with President Erdo\u011fan, a face-saving formula for the government to bring elections forward. This would enable the AKP to capitalise on the increased nationalist fervour following Turkey\u2019s military campaign in Syria and to avoid negative fall-out from the worsening economy.<\/p>\n
However, Devlet Bah\u00e7eli, who has been leading the ultra-nationalist MHP since 1997, is renowned for pulling rabbits out of his political hat.<\/p>\n
By calling early elections in 2002, while serving in a coalition with the Democratic Left Party (DSP) of late Prime Minister B\u00fclent Ecevit and the Motherland Party (ANAP) of Mesut Y\u0131lmaz, he had managed to bring the government down.\u00a0 Both parties were wiped out of the political landscape at the election. Mr. Bah\u00e7eli\u2019s own party, the MHP, failed to get back into the Parliament.<\/p>\n
He was again the kingmaker in 2017. His support for the controversial referendum gave Mr. Erdo\u011fan vastly expanded executive powers, replacing the parliamentary system with the presidential one.<\/p>\n
Despite getting into a formal alliance with the AKP in March 2018, it is still perfectly plausible that Mr. Bah\u00e7eli may have acted alone. He may have plotted to force President Erdo\u011fan\u2019s hand in bringing the election date forward.<\/p>\n
It may also be a pre-emptive move to prevent the breakaway Good Party leader Meral Ak\u015fener challenging both himself and President Erdo\u011fan. By bringing the ballot date forward, he may be hoping to disqualify her party competing in the parliamentary and presidential elections.<\/p>\n
We will soon discover whether Mr Bah\u00e7eli\u2019s call for snap elections is a contrived act with the government or another example of his self-preservation.<\/p>\n
Whichever motive it turns out to be, we can be sure it is not because of an \u201cimminent necessity for Turkey’s survival\u201d, as Mr Bah\u00e7eli claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As expected, the European Commission has delivered its strongest criticism of Turkey to date. Key findings of the 2018 Progress Report on Turkey \u00a0point to negative trends, especially in the areas of rule of law and fundamental rights; serious backsliding on the freedom of expression; inadequate progress in the fight against corruption as well as […]<\/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\/29319"}],"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=29319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29323,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29319\/revisions\/29323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}