Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has said a new election will be considered if the alliance between his party and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) fails to retain a majority in parliament in Sunday’s vote.
“When the presidency and parliament come to the point where they can’t work in unison, there are ways out of this under recently passed constitutional amendments, and they will be implemented. For example, an … early election could be considered,” Bahçeli said during an appearance on TV on Monday evening.
“This is what the law provides for. In the event of a deadlock the law gives the authority to both the president and the parliament to hold elections again,” he added.
Mehmet Uçum, an advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also argued during a Bloomberg interview earlier in this month that a repeat election should be held if Erdoğan wins the presidency but the AKP-MHP alliance becomes a minority in parliament.
However, he later denied having made the comments after the interview was published.
AKP deputy Mustafa Şentop also said yesterday that if the president and parliament could not work cooperatively after the elections, then repeating the general election would be necessary.
“In the June 24 elections, it is imperative that the president’s party also hold the majority in parliament. This is the establishment phase of the new system. Otherwise, it would start imperfectly,” Şentop told the Hürriyet daily.
In a narrowly approved referendum last year, Turkey adopted an executive presidency in which parliament will only have legislative powers, unlike the previous system of governance in which it also exercised executive powers.
Turkey will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday.