Turkey’s main opposition parties have reached a deal on an alliance for snap parliamentary elections on 24 June, a CHP official has said. The defining issue in the country is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan is the longest-serving leader in Turkey’s modern history, and much of that success has depended on wooing a pious constituency that makes up perhaps half of the nation’s 80 million people.
It will enable the smaller parties in the alliance to skirt a regulation that mandates parties must receive at least 10% of the vote to enter parliament. The deal creates a broad coalition against the ruling alliance of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose AK party has established an alliance with the National Movement party (MHP).
The official statement is expected to be released on Thursday and will include the Republican People’s party (CHP), the İyi (Good) party, the Islamist Saadet party (SP) and the Democrat party (DP).
Whoever is elected president in June will inherit a new constitutional system that hands the office wide powers approved by voters in an April 2017 referendum. The office of prime minister will be eliminated, and the president will have powers to unilaterally dissolve parliament and trigger new elections and appoint judges to top courts.
Erdoğan is the clear favourite to win the presidential race, but a larger opposition bloc in parliament would pose a significant challenge.
> Shiuly Rina
Turkish Opposition Parties Agree to Unite against Erdoğan in Elections
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