Turkish President Calls Snap Election to ‘Deny His Rivals Time to Organize’

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan surprised the country with the announcement of a snap general election scheduled for June 24, more than a year before the original date. The announcement was made following mounting pressure from Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahçeli.

Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear spoke with Ceyda Kara, a columnist at Cumhuriyet, Turkey's oldest up-market daily newspaper, about the call for snap elections. The government infamously used water cannons and tear gas in November 2016 on protesters marching to the newspaper's headquarters after officials arrested nine staff members at the paper.

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"We will only have two months left, and when you look at the opposition side, the main opposition party, they don't have a candidate yet," Kara told hosts Brian Becker and Walter Smolarek. "Today, we learned that they will decide on their candidate in two weeks' time. So, everybody was expecting an early election, maybe in August or in November, but Erdogan today shocked most of the people by deciding these snap elections. Before that, he had angrily denounced mounting speculation about the snap elections, or early elections, whatever." 

The office of the prime minister was to be abolished in November 2019, the original date of the upcoming Turkish general election, which would see Erdogan take over the position of head of government and continue his role as head of state. That decision was made in an April 17 constitutional referendum. 

"He just had half of the consent of the Turkish population. He wants to change this system rapidly and he wants to deny his rivals time to organize this time," Kara said. "He cited the developments in Syria and said they need to take important decisions on the economy. And, in fact, we should remember that he has all the power to make all these decisions." 

Hours after Erdogan made the announcement on television, lawmakers in the country approved a measure to extend the country's state of emergency through July. "We have emergency rule here and today the government renewed or extended the emergency rule for six months," Kara said. "Seven times, this is the seventh time after the failed coup in 2016."

Bulent Tezcan of the Republican People's Party, the main opposition party in the country, called for the state of emergency to be lifted immediately. "There cannot be an election under emergency rule. The country needs to brought out of the emergency rule regime starting today."

"Turkey is supposed to have a multi-party system and effectual Parliament," Kara lamented.