The Election Is Coming Into View

Turkey’s next election is beginning to cast a shadow over politics. If lawmakers do not change the election law by October 2027, or by February if the vote is held in March 2028, voters will go to the polls under the existing system, the writer says. The expectation here is that the system will remain unchanged.

As the election approaches, alliance talks will accelerate. The article argues that the 50% plus one rule and the alliance system have altered Turkish politics by forcing parties that could win only 1% of the vote into bargaining. The difference from the coalition negotiations of the past, it says, is that today’s negotiations take place before the election rather than after it.

The contest between the CHP and the New Party, along with the question of whether the DEM Party will nominate a presidential candidate, is presented as decisive. Once the election process begins, the article says, the “Gezi spirit” will push the CHP and New Party toward a joint candidate and pressure Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to support the New Party’s nominee. Mansur Yavaş and Özgür Özel are currently described as the leading contenders.

The article also says Ekrem İmamoğlu is uncomfortable with Özel’s discussion of possible candidates other than him and with the absence of a presidential candidacy office at the New Party headquarters. Özel is expected to face both İmamoğlu’s internal party camp and the CHP outside it.

The writer portrays Erdoğan as entering the election as the favorite. An ASAL survey asking who should lead Turkey in a possible war gave Erdoğan 48.1%, compared with 12.5% for Özel, 6.5% for Yavaş and 3.9% for İmamoğlu. The combined share of the opposition figures listed reached 30.4%, while undecided respondents, nonresponses and other answers accounted for 20.4%.