Turkey PM returns mandate
August 18, 2015
New elections in Turkey are now likelier after the prime minister said he will return his mandate following a failed bid to form a government. The pro-Kurdish party may take part in an interim power-sharing coalition.
Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will return the mandate to form a government to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday evening after the party's latest attempt to form a collation failed.
The country is now expected to hold a snap poll by November after its election on June 7 failed to produce an absolute majority and coalition talks between parliament's three other parties collapsed.
On Monday, the latest attempt to form a coalition between the Islamic conservative AKP and the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) failed.
Coalition talks with the second-biggest party, the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP), had also previously proved fruitless.
Pro-Kurdish party willing to form interim government
The most recent unsuccessful talks have led to Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) saying it will consider taking part in an interim power-sharing government until new elections take place.
HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas said Tuesday that the party would be happy to meet and discuss joining a coalition with the CHP if it is now given the mandate to form a government.
Davutoglu explained Monday in the capital Ankara after emerging from more than two hours of talks with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli that they had failed to reach an agreement.
"Mr. Bahceli told me clearly that he saw no possibility to form a government with the AKP," said Davutoglu.
The prime minister added that Bahceli had also ruled out propping up the AKP if it sought to form a minority government.
"Our preconditions...have not been met by the AKP and, therefore, the basis for a coalition government has not been formed," according to a statement released by Bahceli.
Davutoglu added that he had exhausted all options to form a coalition that the Islam-rooted AKP would need to form a parliamentary majority.
Ruling AKP hoping to win back its absolute majority
The AKP lost its absolute majority in elections on June 7, with the 45-day period to form a government expiring this Sunday.
If no deal is reached by August 23, Erdogan can then dissolve Davutoglu's caretaker cabinet and call for the formation of an interim "election government” which could give the leader of the CHP the chance of forming a coalition.
But Erdogan, a co-founder of the AKP, is thought to favor calling early polls in the hope that his party can win back the majority that it had held for more than a decade.
The loss of the AKP's majority in the June election has meant that Erdogan has been forced to put his plans to rewrite the constitution to create a more powerful executive presidency on the back burner.
mh/jil (dpa, Reuters)