The electoral defeat of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) is likely to have profound implications for both Turkey and the wider Middle East, in that, at a stroke, the mainstay of Muslim Brotherhood politics may have been removed. However, the jubilation with which Erdogan's opponents are greeting his defeat needs to be replaced with some serious reflection. Erdogan's party, with 42 percent of the vote, is still the largest. He will surely seek to form a coalition. The second largest winner in Sunday's election, the Republican People's Party (CHP) has said that it is too soon to think about a coalition. The third most successful, the Nationalist Movement party (MHP) is on paper a more likely partner. The slightly more moderate evolution of the violent ultra-nationalist party of the 1970s which played a large role in street violence that almost brought the country to its knees, the MHP has toned down its anti-minority rhetoric and recently emphasized its Islamic convictions.
The one party that has made it clear that it will have no truck with any coalition with the AKP is the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Though it has won no more than 80 seats in the 550-seat parliament, the HDP is being hailed as the real winner in the election. In that this new party, led by the charismatic Selahattin Demirtas, managed to cross the ten-percent threshold that would give it seats in parliament is indeed stunning. Demirtas gained the support of many Kurds, who make up as much as 20 percent of the population, but he also drew in liberals and moderates.
What garnered this support was the call to stop Erdogan's plans for an executive presidency, which would have inevitably seriously weakened parliament.
But now after this sensational end to 13 years of Erdogan's undisputed rule comes the political reality. Turkish stocks and shares and the lira took a dive as soon as the markets opened Monday morning. Investors are alarmed at the new uncertainty. In most countries, the sometimes long and tortuous business of forming coalition governments does not spook the markets. But Turkey is different. Its politicians have too often presented an unedifying spectacle of sometimes violent squabbling. It is not that many years ago that one legislator shot another dead inside parliament. Corruption was rife. Erdogan first won power because he and his moderate Islamist party seemed to offer the chance to break the mold with transparent and payola-free politics.
But now, all bets are off. The worst scenario is that no coalition government will emerge. The CHP may well want this situation in the hope that as the main opposition, they may actually win if another election is forced on the country. Erdogan, the kingmaker in his constitutional position as president, may equally obstruct or draw out the formation of a coalition in the hope that a second election may frighten voters back to the AKP and give him the chance to resume his drive to change the constitution to create an executive presidency. Such a change requires a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Worrying times are ahead for all Turks. The outcome of the maneuverings in the coming days and maybe even weeks, will be watched with the gravest concern by the rest of the Middle East.
