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Will Turkey hold snap elections in June?

Good Party (İP) Chairwoman Meral Akşener has been saying for some time now that snap elections will be held as early as June 2021, in other words, in five months. A while ago she had said, “[President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan does not like winter. I am expecting elections in June, and it is necessary too.”

In the past few days, based on the prediction that elections will be held in June 2021, she has made statements along the lines of, “This is my expectation. Because the steps taken are in that direction, and as someone who knows Mr. Erdoğan, in hopes of being elected, he will want to be elected and sit across from Biden.”

As a figure leading an opposition party, there is nothing more natural that Ms. Akşener demanding and predicting snap elections. However, when none of your snap election predictions hold true, sometime later, the reliability of your statements in this context may be tarnished; and any similar statements you make may no longer be as interesting as those you said for the first time.

As those who closely follow politics will remember, she had previously predicted elections would be held on July 15, which corresponds to a Sunday.

Meanwhile, the İP leader involving Biden, who was inaugurated as U.S. president, in her statement regarding the early elections she predicts will be held in five months, is quite interesting.

Why?

Do they think that there may be several extraordinary developments that will force the country to hold snap elections so soon?

Are the conditions of 2018 ripe today?

Following the July 15 coup attempt, everybody was asking one another, “What’s next?” in Ankara’s lobbies. This question lingered in minds for months. A while later, the common answer to this question appeared on the horizon as the general elections to be held on Nov. 3, 2019. In other words, as all other methods were depleted, there was no other option left to disrepute Erdoğan in the people’s eyes. If we had to put it in “war terms” as per the conditions of the present term, in order to topple Erdoğan, all buildups were going to be made for November 2019. This was then followed by nightmare scenarios indexed to the election calendar.

One of the primary justifications for the “dominant election” decision announced by the president on April 18, 2018, was, as he emphasized in his speech that day, “to eliminate Nov. 3 plots.” This decision had eliminated all the bad possibilities indexed to the autumn of 2019. The current conditions, though, signal almost the opposite of April 2018 in the context of snap elections.

How?

Let us explain.

Given the political dynamics, it is clear that the Justice and Development (AK) Party is the political party that least needs snap elections. I am yet to come across a single person in ruling government circles stating that we need to go to the ballots before tackling the problems in economy, which emerged with the effects of the pandemic period. Though there are serious problems in the economy, as the sentiment that “Only Erdoğan can solve it” is common, the voting preferences of June 2018 remain almost the same.

More than 70 percent of the public do not want snap elections

But there is another reality on the other side of the coin:

According to public opinion polls, more than 70 percent of the population does not want snap elections.

The reason for this must be the fatigue caused by the numerous elections held between 2014 and 2019. One other reason is that the country needs actions/operations/policies that will solve problems, providing hope for the future, not snap elections. There is no party other than the AK Party in the country to better interpret the “course of affairs” through the polls.

In the case of any mistake, its reflex to correct it, and in the case of any complaint, its reflex to give it a hearing is activated.

You may ask two such questions:

If the vast factions of the society had lost hope in Erdoğan’s government, would the demand for snap elections have been so low? If 70 percent of the population does not want snap elections, is it not clear that this rate includes voters from all the opposition parties as well?

#Turkey
#elections
#opposition
#Erdogan
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