- Email: [email protected]
The 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870
ministerial state agencies. Nonetheless, although not quite as parliamentary as it is often depicted, the current system ensures more balanced relations between the executive and the legislative branches of power. Thus far there has been no sign that Atambayev is considering amendments to the constitutional charter. (Legally, the charter’s section on the executive and the legislative cannot be changed until 2020.) Whether the new president will be satisfied with a narrower range of powers than those available to any of his Central Asian counterparts, or if instead he will push for a different interpretation of the constitutional charter, is one of the central questions now facing the country. In terms of its foreign policy orientation, the country is expected to take a more markedly pro-Russian turn. Apart from the announced closure in 2014 of the Transit Center at Manas, which will leave the US without an important logistical hub in the region, there have also been deals between Russian and Kyrgyzstani companies in the energy sector and hints that Bishkek plans to join the Customs Union. This all suggests that Kyrgyzstan may move decisively away from the earlier multi-vector posture, whereby it tried to maintain warm relations with both Russia and the United States and to extract the highest possible rents from such security ties. On the whole, the election of Atambayev, who won decisive support in all parts of the country and has emphasised the multicultural nature of the country, provides Kyrgyzstan with the opportunity to start again. Finding a strategy and a mode of reconciliation between the supporters of the post-Bakiev order and the ‘ancien regime’, as well as between the various ethnic communities, will be top priorities for Atambayev and the new coalition. In his post-election speech, the new president emphasised his commitment to the country’s unity, between north and south, as well as between ethnic groups (BBC News, 2011). The split within the nationalist camp may well favour Atambayev in his efforts. And, now that
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the new president has rewarded his supporters and consolidated his position with a more homogenous coalition behind him, he may be willing to consider making gestures to the losers in the October 2011 elections. The risk, of course, is that nothing much will be done in terms of policy, as time will be spent on negotiating between personalities and personal feuds. This is all the more concerning since the economic situation remains dire, and Russia’s pledge (in the immediate aftermath of the elections) of additional support will be little more than a palliative. Kyrgyzstan cannot really afford to lose more time.
References BBC News, 2011. New Kyrgyz Leader Almazbek Atambayev in Unity Pledge. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific15522147 (accessed 02.07.12.). Fumagalli, M., 2007. Informal ethnopolitics and local authority figures in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Ethnopolitics 6 (2), 211–233. Huskey, E., Hill, D., 2011. The 2010 referendum and parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan. Electoral Studies 30, 876–879. International Crisis Group, 2010. The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan. Asia Report 193. Osh, Brussels. Konstitutsiya Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki (Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic), 2010. Available at: http://www.gov.kg/?page_id¼263 (accessed 02.07.12.). Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, 2011. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Available at: http://www.cmi.fi/images/stories/activities/ blacksea/kic/kic_report_english_final.pdf (accessed 02.07.12.). Melvin, N.J., 2011. Promoting a Stable and Multiethnic Kyrgyzstan. Open Society Foundations Occasional Papers, March. OSCE, 2011. Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential Election was Peaceful, but Shortcomings Underscore Need to Improve Integrity of Process. Press Release, 31 October 2011. Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihr/ elections/84571 (accessed 02.07.12.). Tsentral’naia komissiia po provedeniiu vyborov i referendumov Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki, 2011. Vybory Prezidenty Kirgiskoi Respubliki http://www. shailoo.gov.kg/index.php?module¼news&page¼VYBORY_PREZIDENTA_ KYRGYZSKOY_RESPUBLIKI_Predvaritelnye_rezultaty__VYBORY_PREZIDE NTA_KYRGYZSKOY_RESPUBLIKI_Predvaritelnye_rezultaty&pagelang¼ru (accessed 02.07.12.).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2012.07.001
The 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey Barıs¸ Kesgin* Department of Political Science, Susquehanna University, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove, PA 17870, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 August 2011 Accepted 5 June 2012
* Tel.: þ1 570 3724371. E-mail address: [email protected].
In a unanimous vote on 3 March 2011 and with support from both government and opposition members, the Turkish parliament (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, Turkish Grand National Assembly) called for a parliamentary election to be held on 12 June 2011, about 45 days ahead of
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Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870
schedule. The 550 Members of Parliament (MPs) were elected from party lists in 81 provinces across the country and at polls at Turkey’s borders and customs gates. 1. Background Unlike the previous two parliamentary elections, Turkey went to the polls with no immediate crisis. The threat to secularism perceived as being posed by the governing party was less of a debating point than at the 2007 elections (Bacik, 2008). Nonetheless, as discussed below, it did not take so long for various controversies to surface during the election campaign. Turkey’s parliamentary election of 2011 was held under the same proportional representation electoral system as was in force at the previous election in 2007.1 Seats are distributed among provinces according to their population – with the proviso that each province has at least one deputy in the legislature – and among parties according to the d’Hondt method. Between 2007 and 2011, the only notable change was the re-distribution of seats in the parliament based on the national census at the end of 2010 (Supreme Election Council, 2011a). Otherwise, a ten percent national electoral threshold remained in effect and the main players did not change. Deterred by this uniquely high threshold, many candidates from smaller parties again followed the strategy of running as independents – to whom the threshold does not apply. (While these candidates formally cast off any party affiliation, they generally make their partisan intentions known publicly, and voters assume that, once elected, the candidate will rejoin his or her political party.) 2. Contenders and issues The Turkish parliamentary elections of 2011 were arguably not very competitive. Political parties already represented in the parliament were the main contenders in the elections. Among them, the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma, AKP) was the clear frontrunner. Nonetheless, thanks to a change in its leadership cadres, the main opposition Republican People’s (Cumhuriyet Halk) Party was expected to increase its vote share significantly. Another member of the opposition, the Nationalist Action (Milliyetçi Hareket) Party, also began its electoral campaign with the hopes of gaining support. Finally, the Peace and Democracy (Barıs¸ ve Demokrasi) Party, which also had a party group in the parliament, again ran primarily on and agenda based on Kurdish rights and freedoms. One reason why the AKP did not face a serious challenge to its political power was that its leader, Recep Tayyip an, retained his charismatic appeal. Moreover, the Erdog governing party, which had been in office since November 2002, was relatively successful in its management of the economy at a time of global recession. Therefore, the main theme of its electoral campaign was stability. The party leadership and its candidates put an emphasis on the
1 The parliament of 2007 was elected for a four-year term. The previous term length had been five years, although few of Turkey’s unstable parliaments had gone that distance.
economic – as well as political – stability maintained since the Justice and Development Party came to power. During the electoral campaign, this message appeared to have succeeded as the polls indicated that the governing party would comfortably earn about 40 percent of the votes even in the worst case scenarios. The opposition parties, and primarily those already represented in the parliament, posed a more serious threat at the outset of the electoral campaign than in its later weeks. While the main opposition party had gained some lu became its new momentum when Kemal Kılıçdarog chairman in May20102 and reshaped the leadership cadres an of Republican People’s Party (CHP), Prime Minister Erdog lu’s abilities and promise successfully challenged Kılıçdarog as a leader. In a significant shift from the 2007 electoral lu put less emphasis on campaign, the CHP under Kılıçdarog the governing party’s threat to the secular regime in Turkey. Instead, the main opposition message was its claim that AKP was not leading the country in the right direction and that there was a need for change. The foundations of this discourse were the high unemployment figures, Justice and Development’s failure to address the ‘Kurdish issue’, and its alleged threat to Turkey’s secular and unitary state (either because of the AKP’s Islamist roots or the risk of Kurdish secession). The Nationalist Action Party (MHP) shared a similar message of change, campaigning about the threat of terrorism and Kurdish secession. Devlet Bahçeli’s party once again appealed to broad nationalist sentiments among the Turkish voters. However, Nationalist Action became less of a threat to the governing party as the election approached. The MHP also lost momentum due to internal struggles. These surfaced in the form of videos, released on the internet in late May, showing private conversations in which senior members of the party were criticizing its leadership cadres. As such, for much of the campaigning period, it was questionable whether the Nationalists would be able to surpass the 10 percent national threshold. In order to overcome the barrier of the world’s highest electoral threshold, candidates from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) again ran as independents. The main campaign theme for the Peace and Democracy members was the government’s lack of progress in addressing Kurdish political and economic concerns. That party’s stronghold was primarily Kurdish southeastern Turkey, where its principal opponent was the AKP. Notably, however, in 2011 the CHP and MHP also attempted to reach out to the voters in this region in which they had tradilu and tionally lacked support. For instance, both Kılıçdarog Bahçeli attended rallies in Diyarbakir. Other opposition parties, without representation in the preceding parliament, also competed in the elections. Turkish electoral law requires that, in order to compete in parliamentary elections, a political party must be institutionally organized in at least half of the provinces and must have held its grand party convention six months before the election date. When the decision to hold elections was
2 Former chairman Deniz Baykal left his position rather involuntarily in the wake of a personal scandal.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870 Table 1 Results of the 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey. Party
Votes
Votes Seats Seat change (%) from 2007
Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) Independents Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) Other partiesa Total valid votes Invalid votes
21,399,082
49.8 327
14
11,155,972
26.0 135
þ23
5,585,513
13.0
53
18
2,819,917 543,454
6.6 1.3
35 0
þ9 0
1,407,825 3.3 0 42,941,763 100.0 550 973,185 2.2
0
Electoral districts Border/customs gates Overall All votes cast 43,785,665 Registered 50,237,343 voters Turnout (%) 87.2
129,283 2,568,979
43,914,948 52,806,322
5.0
83.2
Source: Supreme Election Council (http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/docs/ 2011MilletvekiliSecimi/gumrukdahil/gumrukdahil.pdf, last accessed June 4, 2012). a Each gained less than one percent of the votes in the election. In alphabetical order: Büyük Birlik (Grand Union), Demokrat (Democrat), ru Yol (True Path), Emek (Labor), Demokratik Sol (Democratic Leftist), Dog Hak ve Es¸itlik (Rights and Equality), Halkın Sesi (People’s Voice), Liberal Demokrat (Liberal Democrat), Millet (Nation), Milliyetçi ve Muhafazakar (Nationalist and Conservative), Türkiye Komünist (Turkish Communist).
reached in the parliament, there were 27 political parties eligible. Not all participated in the elections; the ballot included 15 political parties and independents. Of those parties without seats in parliament that nonetheless took part, the lack of interest from potential candidates to run on their list was an early signal of the fate of these parties (Zaman, 2011). As a result, once prominent parties such as the Democratic Leftists (Demokratik Sol) continued their decline. A major – perhaps the major – theme during the electoral campaign was the prospect of a new constitution after the elections. In order to amend the existing constitution or adopt a new one, the AKP needed to win more than twothirds of the seats (367 out of 550) in the parliament. At the heart of this debate was Erdogan’s declared desire for a presidential system in Turkey. Since this idea was widely unpopular among the other parties, any unilateral moves would have been quite destabilizing, and the prospect became a serious concern for many domestic (as well as foreign) political actors.3 Alternatively, many analysts expected that the Justice and Development would seek support from the opposition parties before making such a change.
3. Results The Turkish electorate voted the AKP into government for a third term. With just short of 50 percent support in
3 The Economist, concerned with AKP gaining a super-majority, called Turkish voters to vote for the opposition (2 June 2011).
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the polls, Justice and Development won a solid majority of 327 MPs in the Turkish parliament (Table 1). Putting the outcome in a nutshell, the parties already in parliament returned but with a different distribution of seats. lu The Republican People’s Party under Kemal Kılıçdarog earned 26 percent of the votes and took 135 seats; Bahçeli’s Nationalist Action Party took 53 seats with 13 percent of the vote; finally, the independents of Peace and Democracy took 35 seats with seven percent of the votes. Apart from these four, only Felicity (Saadet) gained more than one percent of the votes and all other contenders in the elections were below that mark. Finally, about a million votes in the elections were invalid. This amounts to slightly more than two percent of the votes. Distinct from past analyses of Turkish parliamentary elections (e.g. Bacik, 2004, 2008), turnout in 2011 will be interpreted here by differentiating the votes counted across 81 provinces of Turkey from those cast in the polls at Turkish border/customs gates. This distinction is useful for multiple reasons; most importantly, it provides some nuance to the interpretation of election results as aggregated in Table 1. The most striking difference is between the turnouts of the Turkish electorate registered inside and outside Turkey. Citizens living abroad can vote at border gates as they arrive in Turkey.4 However, there remains no coordination for Turkish diaspora to vote in their consulates or embassies. The system requires registered voters to be in Turkey so that they can vote, in essence making hundreds of thousands of voters ineligible. Millions of Turkish diaspora in various parts of Europe and many others around the globe then lose their primary political right.5 As a result, only five percent of eligible Turkish expatriate voters were able to exercise their right to vote: from the approximately 2.6 m registered voters, only 129,283 votes were cast at the border/ customs gates. This also has significant effects on the aggregated results presented in Table 1. For instance, while the turnout of voters registered in Turkey is 87 percent, the overall percentage that also includes the diaspora is four points lower.6 Finally, the threshold seems to have reduced electoral fragmentation such that 95 percent of the votes cast were represented in the parliament – unlike the November 2002 election in which only about 55 percent of votes went to parties that made it into parliament. In short, the major political contenders in Turkish politics overcame the
4 Voting at border polls starts a month earlier than the countrywide voting. In the 2011 parliamentary election, this date was 10 May. 5 In order to be eligible to vote at border/customs gates, voters should have registered beforehand at a Turkish consulate or embassy declaring their foreign address. Turkish Law 5749 did modify the existing electoral code so that expatriates can vote abroad. However, the Constitutional Court annulled parts of this law – i.e. the provision for voting by mail – in May 2008 and then, as the 2011 elections approached, the Supreme Election Council (2011b) of Turkey decided on 26 February 2011 that it was not prepared to organize elections abroad. 6 It is also worth noting Turkish expatriates’ votes by political party: Justice and Development 61.7 percent; Republican People’s 26.2 percent; Nationalist Action 8.2 percent. Ballots at border/customs gates list only political parties; votes received are then distributed proportionally.
870
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870
infamous ten percent national threshold. Problems of representation, however, remained a major issue in the aftermath of the election for a different reason.
meetings in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir for about two months. Later, the Peace and Democracy MPs also took the oath of the office on 1 October, the first day of the legislative session.
4. Aftermath 5. Outlook The 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey provided a clear conclusion: for a third time, AKP was going to form a new cabinet. On 29 June, soon after the Turkey’s Supreme Election Council announced the final results, President Abdullah Gül asked Justice and Development chairman an to form a new government. The third Recep Tayyip Erdog AKP government won a confidence vote on 13 July by 322 votes to 173. This notwithstanding, during the one-month period between the election and the vote of confidence, Turkey found itself in a serious political crisis. The so-called ‘yemin krizi’ (oath-of-office crisis) started after the Turkish Election Council’s decisions that two Republican People’s, one National Action, and five Peace and Democracy candidates would have to remain in prison despite their election.7 Following this decision, the main opposition CHP announced that none of its elected MPs would take the oath of office until the judicial authorities respect “the people’s voice” and release the two MPs concerned. The BDP MPs also declared that they would not take part in any parliamentary activities until all of their elected MPs were allowed to assume office. The MHP decided to take the oath of office, while still expressing its strong opposition to the Election Council’s decision. As such, only AKP and MHP members were present to take oath in the chamber on the first day that parliament was called to meet. The CHP members, while present in the chambers, refused in protest to take the oath; the BDP MPs were not even in Ankara at the time. In this chaotic atmosphere, the AKP’s electoral honeymoon was quite short-lived – it was quickly pressed to an did not give in to solve this crisis. Prime Minister Erdog the demands of the opposition CHP and BDP, arguing that such an action would risk the independence of the judicial authorities. An exchange of confrontational statements between the AKP and the opposition parties quickly escalated matters and, as President Abdullah Gül also intervened and met with representatives of the CHP and BDP, the crisis was only partially resolved in the weeks that followed. The Republican People’s Party’s MPs eventually took the oath of office on 11 July but talks with the BDP collapsed. The BDP and its elected MPs then held party
A third straight election victory is a major achievement for the AKP. However, the 2011 Turkish parliamentary election also thereby marks an important milestone: the (self-imposed) third and final term for many AKP MPs, an.8 With a message of politincluding Recep Tayyip Erdog ical and economic stability, and his charismatic leadership, an continued his ascent in Turkish politics. Now he Erdog and the new Justice and Development government have to deliver even more reforms. Most notable among these is a new constitution, written by civilians and not after a coup d’état. However, many months after the elections, debate over that constitution has yet to start in earnest, despite the setting up of an inter-party commission. an named his There are other reasons why what Erdog ‘master term’ as prime minister will be challenging for both himself and the AKP. Occasional tensions with Peace and Democracy and its constituents, heightened PKK terrorism in eastern Turkey, the threat of a double-dip global economic crisis, events in neighboring Syria and the broader Middle East, and so on – all of these could translate into serious tests for the winners of the 2011 election. Nevertheless, should the AKP government continue its recent performance in office, it would be no great surprise were it still be the most serious contender in the next an and many other senior election, even without Erdog figures not being on the ballot. References Bacik, G., 2008. The parliamentary election in Turkey, July 2007. Electoral Studies 27 (2), 377–381. Bacik, G., 2004. The parliamentary election in Turkey, November 2002. Electoral Studies 23 (4), 821–828. Economist, 2011. Turkey’s Election: One for the Opposition. 2 June. Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/18774786 (accessed 04.06.12.). Supreme Election Council, 2011a. Available at: http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/ docs/Kararlar/2011Pdf/2011-119.pdf (accessed 04.06.12.). Supreme Election Council, 2011b. Available at: http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/ docs/Kararlar/2011Pdf/2011-120.pdf (accessed 04.06.12.). Zaman, 2011. Meclis’te grubu bulunmayan partilerde aday sıkıntısı. Available at: http://www.zaman.com/haber.do?haberno¼1113096 (accessed 04.06.12.).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2012.06.001
7 The Supreme Election Council also annulled the election of another Peace and Democracy MP, Hatip Dicle, because of his conviction for publicly supporting the PKK terrorist organization. Based on the distribution of votes, Dicle’s seat was then assigned to a Justice and Development candidate in the same electoral district of Diyarbakir.
8 In preparation for this turnover in party cadres, AKP chairman an chose not to nominate many incumbent MPs for re-election in Erdog 2011.
ministerial state agencies. Nonetheless, although not quite as parliamentary as it is often depicted, the current system ensures more balanced relations between the executive and the legislative branches of power. Thus far there has been no sign that Atambayev is considering amendments to the constitutional charter. (Legally, the charter’s section on the executive and the legislative cannot be changed until 2020.) Whether the new president will be satisfied with a narrower range of powers than those available to any of his Central Asian counterparts, or if instead he will push for a different interpretation of the constitutional charter, is one of the central questions now facing the country. In terms of its foreign policy orientation, the country is expected to take a more markedly pro-Russian turn. Apart from the announced closure in 2014 of the Transit Center at Manas, which will leave the US without an important logistical hub in the region, there have also been deals between Russian and Kyrgyzstani companies in the energy sector and hints that Bishkek plans to join the Customs Union. This all suggests that Kyrgyzstan may move decisively away from the earlier multi-vector posture, whereby it tried to maintain warm relations with both Russia and the United States and to extract the highest possible rents from such security ties. On the whole, the election of Atambayev, who won decisive support in all parts of the country and has emphasised the multicultural nature of the country, provides Kyrgyzstan with the opportunity to start again. Finding a strategy and a mode of reconciliation between the supporters of the post-Bakiev order and the ‘ancien regime’, as well as between the various ethnic communities, will be top priorities for Atambayev and the new coalition. In his post-election speech, the new president emphasised his commitment to the country’s unity, between north and south, as well as between ethnic groups (BBC News, 2011). The split within the nationalist camp may well favour Atambayev in his efforts. And, now that
867
the new president has rewarded his supporters and consolidated his position with a more homogenous coalition behind him, he may be willing to consider making gestures to the losers in the October 2011 elections. The risk, of course, is that nothing much will be done in terms of policy, as time will be spent on negotiating between personalities and personal feuds. This is all the more concerning since the economic situation remains dire, and Russia’s pledge (in the immediate aftermath of the elections) of additional support will be little more than a palliative. Kyrgyzstan cannot really afford to lose more time.
References BBC News, 2011. New Kyrgyz Leader Almazbek Atambayev in Unity Pledge. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific15522147 (accessed 02.07.12.). Fumagalli, M., 2007. Informal ethnopolitics and local authority figures in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Ethnopolitics 6 (2), 211–233. Huskey, E., Hill, D., 2011. The 2010 referendum and parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan. Electoral Studies 30, 876–879. International Crisis Group, 2010. The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan. Asia Report 193. Osh, Brussels. Konstitutsiya Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki (Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic), 2010. Available at: http://www.gov.kg/?page_id¼263 (accessed 02.07.12.). Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, 2011. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry into the Events in Southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Available at: http://www.cmi.fi/images/stories/activities/ blacksea/kic/kic_report_english_final.pdf (accessed 02.07.12.). Melvin, N.J., 2011. Promoting a Stable and Multiethnic Kyrgyzstan. Open Society Foundations Occasional Papers, March. OSCE, 2011. Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential Election was Peaceful, but Shortcomings Underscore Need to Improve Integrity of Process. Press Release, 31 October 2011. Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihr/ elections/84571 (accessed 02.07.12.). Tsentral’naia komissiia po provedeniiu vyborov i referendumov Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki, 2011. Vybory Prezidenty Kirgiskoi Respubliki http://www. shailoo.gov.kg/index.php?module¼news&page¼VYBORY_PREZIDENTA_ KYRGYZSKOY_RESPUBLIKI_Predvaritelnye_rezultaty__VYBORY_PREZIDE NTA_KYRGYZSKOY_RESPUBLIKI_Predvaritelnye_rezultaty&pagelang¼ru (accessed 02.07.12.).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2012.07.001
The 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey Barıs¸ Kesgin* Department of Political Science, Susquehanna University, 514 University Avenue, Selinsgrove, PA 17870, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 August 2011 Accepted 5 June 2012
* Tel.: þ1 570 3724371. E-mail address: [email protected].
In a unanimous vote on 3 March 2011 and with support from both government and opposition members, the Turkish parliament (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, Turkish Grand National Assembly) called for a parliamentary election to be held on 12 June 2011, about 45 days ahead of
868
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870
schedule. The 550 Members of Parliament (MPs) were elected from party lists in 81 provinces across the country and at polls at Turkey’s borders and customs gates. 1. Background Unlike the previous two parliamentary elections, Turkey went to the polls with no immediate crisis. The threat to secularism perceived as being posed by the governing party was less of a debating point than at the 2007 elections (Bacik, 2008). Nonetheless, as discussed below, it did not take so long for various controversies to surface during the election campaign. Turkey’s parliamentary election of 2011 was held under the same proportional representation electoral system as was in force at the previous election in 2007.1 Seats are distributed among provinces according to their population – with the proviso that each province has at least one deputy in the legislature – and among parties according to the d’Hondt method. Between 2007 and 2011, the only notable change was the re-distribution of seats in the parliament based on the national census at the end of 2010 (Supreme Election Council, 2011a). Otherwise, a ten percent national electoral threshold remained in effect and the main players did not change. Deterred by this uniquely high threshold, many candidates from smaller parties again followed the strategy of running as independents – to whom the threshold does not apply. (While these candidates formally cast off any party affiliation, they generally make their partisan intentions known publicly, and voters assume that, once elected, the candidate will rejoin his or her political party.) 2. Contenders and issues The Turkish parliamentary elections of 2011 were arguably not very competitive. Political parties already represented in the parliament were the main contenders in the elections. Among them, the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma, AKP) was the clear frontrunner. Nonetheless, thanks to a change in its leadership cadres, the main opposition Republican People’s (Cumhuriyet Halk) Party was expected to increase its vote share significantly. Another member of the opposition, the Nationalist Action (Milliyetçi Hareket) Party, also began its electoral campaign with the hopes of gaining support. Finally, the Peace and Democracy (Barıs¸ ve Demokrasi) Party, which also had a party group in the parliament, again ran primarily on and agenda based on Kurdish rights and freedoms. One reason why the AKP did not face a serious challenge to its political power was that its leader, Recep Tayyip an, retained his charismatic appeal. Moreover, the Erdog governing party, which had been in office since November 2002, was relatively successful in its management of the economy at a time of global recession. Therefore, the main theme of its electoral campaign was stability. The party leadership and its candidates put an emphasis on the
1 The parliament of 2007 was elected for a four-year term. The previous term length had been five years, although few of Turkey’s unstable parliaments had gone that distance.
economic – as well as political – stability maintained since the Justice and Development Party came to power. During the electoral campaign, this message appeared to have succeeded as the polls indicated that the governing party would comfortably earn about 40 percent of the votes even in the worst case scenarios. The opposition parties, and primarily those already represented in the parliament, posed a more serious threat at the outset of the electoral campaign than in its later weeks. While the main opposition party had gained some lu became its new momentum when Kemal Kılıçdarog chairman in May20102 and reshaped the leadership cadres an of Republican People’s Party (CHP), Prime Minister Erdog lu’s abilities and promise successfully challenged Kılıçdarog as a leader. In a significant shift from the 2007 electoral lu put less emphasis on campaign, the CHP under Kılıçdarog the governing party’s threat to the secular regime in Turkey. Instead, the main opposition message was its claim that AKP was not leading the country in the right direction and that there was a need for change. The foundations of this discourse were the high unemployment figures, Justice and Development’s failure to address the ‘Kurdish issue’, and its alleged threat to Turkey’s secular and unitary state (either because of the AKP’s Islamist roots or the risk of Kurdish secession). The Nationalist Action Party (MHP) shared a similar message of change, campaigning about the threat of terrorism and Kurdish secession. Devlet Bahçeli’s party once again appealed to broad nationalist sentiments among the Turkish voters. However, Nationalist Action became less of a threat to the governing party as the election approached. The MHP also lost momentum due to internal struggles. These surfaced in the form of videos, released on the internet in late May, showing private conversations in which senior members of the party were criticizing its leadership cadres. As such, for much of the campaigning period, it was questionable whether the Nationalists would be able to surpass the 10 percent national threshold. In order to overcome the barrier of the world’s highest electoral threshold, candidates from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) again ran as independents. The main campaign theme for the Peace and Democracy members was the government’s lack of progress in addressing Kurdish political and economic concerns. That party’s stronghold was primarily Kurdish southeastern Turkey, where its principal opponent was the AKP. Notably, however, in 2011 the CHP and MHP also attempted to reach out to the voters in this region in which they had tradilu and tionally lacked support. For instance, both Kılıçdarog Bahçeli attended rallies in Diyarbakir. Other opposition parties, without representation in the preceding parliament, also competed in the elections. Turkish electoral law requires that, in order to compete in parliamentary elections, a political party must be institutionally organized in at least half of the provinces and must have held its grand party convention six months before the election date. When the decision to hold elections was
2 Former chairman Deniz Baykal left his position rather involuntarily in the wake of a personal scandal.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870 Table 1 Results of the 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey. Party
Votes
Votes Seats Seat change (%) from 2007
Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) Independents Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) Other partiesa Total valid votes Invalid votes
21,399,082
49.8 327
14
11,155,972
26.0 135
þ23
5,585,513
13.0
53
18
2,819,917 543,454
6.6 1.3
35 0
þ9 0
1,407,825 3.3 0 42,941,763 100.0 550 973,185 2.2
0
Electoral districts Border/customs gates Overall All votes cast 43,785,665 Registered 50,237,343 voters Turnout (%) 87.2
129,283 2,568,979
43,914,948 52,806,322
5.0
83.2
Source: Supreme Election Council (http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/docs/ 2011MilletvekiliSecimi/gumrukdahil/gumrukdahil.pdf, last accessed June 4, 2012). a Each gained less than one percent of the votes in the election. In alphabetical order: Büyük Birlik (Grand Union), Demokrat (Democrat), ru Yol (True Path), Emek (Labor), Demokratik Sol (Democratic Leftist), Dog Hak ve Es¸itlik (Rights and Equality), Halkın Sesi (People’s Voice), Liberal Demokrat (Liberal Democrat), Millet (Nation), Milliyetçi ve Muhafazakar (Nationalist and Conservative), Türkiye Komünist (Turkish Communist).
reached in the parliament, there were 27 political parties eligible. Not all participated in the elections; the ballot included 15 political parties and independents. Of those parties without seats in parliament that nonetheless took part, the lack of interest from potential candidates to run on their list was an early signal of the fate of these parties (Zaman, 2011). As a result, once prominent parties such as the Democratic Leftists (Demokratik Sol) continued their decline. A major – perhaps the major – theme during the electoral campaign was the prospect of a new constitution after the elections. In order to amend the existing constitution or adopt a new one, the AKP needed to win more than twothirds of the seats (367 out of 550) in the parliament. At the heart of this debate was Erdogan’s declared desire for a presidential system in Turkey. Since this idea was widely unpopular among the other parties, any unilateral moves would have been quite destabilizing, and the prospect became a serious concern for many domestic (as well as foreign) political actors.3 Alternatively, many analysts expected that the Justice and Development would seek support from the opposition parties before making such a change.
3. Results The Turkish electorate voted the AKP into government for a third term. With just short of 50 percent support in
3 The Economist, concerned with AKP gaining a super-majority, called Turkish voters to vote for the opposition (2 June 2011).
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the polls, Justice and Development won a solid majority of 327 MPs in the Turkish parliament (Table 1). Putting the outcome in a nutshell, the parties already in parliament returned but with a different distribution of seats. lu The Republican People’s Party under Kemal Kılıçdarog earned 26 percent of the votes and took 135 seats; Bahçeli’s Nationalist Action Party took 53 seats with 13 percent of the vote; finally, the independents of Peace and Democracy took 35 seats with seven percent of the votes. Apart from these four, only Felicity (Saadet) gained more than one percent of the votes and all other contenders in the elections were below that mark. Finally, about a million votes in the elections were invalid. This amounts to slightly more than two percent of the votes. Distinct from past analyses of Turkish parliamentary elections (e.g. Bacik, 2004, 2008), turnout in 2011 will be interpreted here by differentiating the votes counted across 81 provinces of Turkey from those cast in the polls at Turkish border/customs gates. This distinction is useful for multiple reasons; most importantly, it provides some nuance to the interpretation of election results as aggregated in Table 1. The most striking difference is between the turnouts of the Turkish electorate registered inside and outside Turkey. Citizens living abroad can vote at border gates as they arrive in Turkey.4 However, there remains no coordination for Turkish diaspora to vote in their consulates or embassies. The system requires registered voters to be in Turkey so that they can vote, in essence making hundreds of thousands of voters ineligible. Millions of Turkish diaspora in various parts of Europe and many others around the globe then lose their primary political right.5 As a result, only five percent of eligible Turkish expatriate voters were able to exercise their right to vote: from the approximately 2.6 m registered voters, only 129,283 votes were cast at the border/ customs gates. This also has significant effects on the aggregated results presented in Table 1. For instance, while the turnout of voters registered in Turkey is 87 percent, the overall percentage that also includes the diaspora is four points lower.6 Finally, the threshold seems to have reduced electoral fragmentation such that 95 percent of the votes cast were represented in the parliament – unlike the November 2002 election in which only about 55 percent of votes went to parties that made it into parliament. In short, the major political contenders in Turkish politics overcame the
4 Voting at border polls starts a month earlier than the countrywide voting. In the 2011 parliamentary election, this date was 10 May. 5 In order to be eligible to vote at border/customs gates, voters should have registered beforehand at a Turkish consulate or embassy declaring their foreign address. Turkish Law 5749 did modify the existing electoral code so that expatriates can vote abroad. However, the Constitutional Court annulled parts of this law – i.e. the provision for voting by mail – in May 2008 and then, as the 2011 elections approached, the Supreme Election Council (2011b) of Turkey decided on 26 February 2011 that it was not prepared to organize elections abroad. 6 It is also worth noting Turkish expatriates’ votes by political party: Justice and Development 61.7 percent; Republican People’s 26.2 percent; Nationalist Action 8.2 percent. Ballots at border/customs gates list only political parties; votes received are then distributed proportionally.
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Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 31 (2012) 861–870
infamous ten percent national threshold. Problems of representation, however, remained a major issue in the aftermath of the election for a different reason.
meetings in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir for about two months. Later, the Peace and Democracy MPs also took the oath of the office on 1 October, the first day of the legislative session.
4. Aftermath 5. Outlook The 2011 parliamentary election in Turkey provided a clear conclusion: for a third time, AKP was going to form a new cabinet. On 29 June, soon after the Turkey’s Supreme Election Council announced the final results, President Abdullah Gül asked Justice and Development chairman an to form a new government. The third Recep Tayyip Erdog AKP government won a confidence vote on 13 July by 322 votes to 173. This notwithstanding, during the one-month period between the election and the vote of confidence, Turkey found itself in a serious political crisis. The so-called ‘yemin krizi’ (oath-of-office crisis) started after the Turkish Election Council’s decisions that two Republican People’s, one National Action, and five Peace and Democracy candidates would have to remain in prison despite their election.7 Following this decision, the main opposition CHP announced that none of its elected MPs would take the oath of office until the judicial authorities respect “the people’s voice” and release the two MPs concerned. The BDP MPs also declared that they would not take part in any parliamentary activities until all of their elected MPs were allowed to assume office. The MHP decided to take the oath of office, while still expressing its strong opposition to the Election Council’s decision. As such, only AKP and MHP members were present to take oath in the chamber on the first day that parliament was called to meet. The CHP members, while present in the chambers, refused in protest to take the oath; the BDP MPs were not even in Ankara at the time. In this chaotic atmosphere, the AKP’s electoral honeymoon was quite short-lived – it was quickly pressed to an did not give in to solve this crisis. Prime Minister Erdog the demands of the opposition CHP and BDP, arguing that such an action would risk the independence of the judicial authorities. An exchange of confrontational statements between the AKP and the opposition parties quickly escalated matters and, as President Abdullah Gül also intervened and met with representatives of the CHP and BDP, the crisis was only partially resolved in the weeks that followed. The Republican People’s Party’s MPs eventually took the oath of office on 11 July but talks with the BDP collapsed. The BDP and its elected MPs then held party
A third straight election victory is a major achievement for the AKP. However, the 2011 Turkish parliamentary election also thereby marks an important milestone: the (self-imposed) third and final term for many AKP MPs, an.8 With a message of politincluding Recep Tayyip Erdog ical and economic stability, and his charismatic leadership, an continued his ascent in Turkish politics. Now he Erdog and the new Justice and Development government have to deliver even more reforms. Most notable among these is a new constitution, written by civilians and not after a coup d’état. However, many months after the elections, debate over that constitution has yet to start in earnest, despite the setting up of an inter-party commission. an named his There are other reasons why what Erdog ‘master term’ as prime minister will be challenging for both himself and the AKP. Occasional tensions with Peace and Democracy and its constituents, heightened PKK terrorism in eastern Turkey, the threat of a double-dip global economic crisis, events in neighboring Syria and the broader Middle East, and so on – all of these could translate into serious tests for the winners of the 2011 election. Nevertheless, should the AKP government continue its recent performance in office, it would be no great surprise were it still be the most serious contender in the next an and many other senior election, even without Erdog figures not being on the ballot. References Bacik, G., 2008. The parliamentary election in Turkey, July 2007. Electoral Studies 27 (2), 377–381. Bacik, G., 2004. The parliamentary election in Turkey, November 2002. Electoral Studies 23 (4), 821–828. Economist, 2011. Turkey’s Election: One for the Opposition. 2 June. Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/18774786 (accessed 04.06.12.). Supreme Election Council, 2011a. Available at: http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/ docs/Kararlar/2011Pdf/2011-119.pdf (accessed 04.06.12.). Supreme Election Council, 2011b. Available at: http://www.ysk.gov.tr/ysk/ docs/Kararlar/2011Pdf/2011-120.pdf (accessed 04.06.12.). Zaman, 2011. Meclis’te grubu bulunmayan partilerde aday sıkıntısı. Available at: http://www.zaman.com/haber.do?haberno¼1113096 (accessed 04.06.12.).
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7 The Supreme Election Council also annulled the election of another Peace and Democracy MP, Hatip Dicle, because of his conviction for publicly supporting the PKK terrorist organization. Based on the distribution of votes, Dicle’s seat was then assigned to a Justice and Development candidate in the same electoral district of Diyarbakir.
8 In preparation for this turnover in party cadres, AKP chairman an chose not to nominate many incumbent MPs for re-election in Erdog 2011.