Aslı Aydıntaşbaş in Milliyet writes that it’s not certain that pro-Kurdish HDP will cross the ten percent threshold to parliament, but she notes that polls indicate an upward trend. However, HDP will have to be wary of provocations and assure the Turkish public beforehand that it has got nothing to do with any acts of violence that may be staged during the run-up to the election in June. Oya Baydar on the t24 news site writes that the sine qua non for electoral success is that the HDP makes sure to forcefully deny and dispel the rumors that certain circles are spreading that the HDP has come to an agreement with Erdoğan to introduce a presidential system. Ali Bayramoğlu in Yeni Şafak predicts that the elections are going to confirm that both AKP and HDP benefit from the headway that is being made in the solution process. Ahmet İnsel in Radikal writes that the HDP has the potential to become the Freedom Movement for Turkey, provided that the line of its co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş is not sabotaged by forces from within the Kurdish political movement itself.

By M. K. Kaya (vol. 8, no. 5 of the Turkey Analyst) 

The row over Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s reinstated intelligence chief, is suggestive of shifting power realities and rivalries within the AKP regime. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu suffered a serious setback when he was forced to let Hakan Fidan return to MIT. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan needed not only to have his confidante back at the helm of the critically important MIT, but also to ensure that the circle around Davutoğlu did not succeed in its bid to become a power centre on its own right. Erdoğan correctly saw the emerging Davutoğlu-Fidan alliance as an alliance that had the potential to reconfigure the power status quo within the AKP.

Fatih Yaşlı in Yurt writes that the evacuation of the Süleyman Şah tomb in Syria symbolizes the end of the neo-Ottoman project of the AKP regime. İbrahim Karagül in Yeni Şafak sees a foreign hand behind ISIS and argues that the operation that evacuated the Turkish soldiers thwarted the designs of foreign powers that were scheming to attack Turkish interests under the guise of ISIS. Etyen Mahçupyan in Akşam writes that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not an authoritarian, but that he behaves like that only when he feels under threat. Mahçupyan urges the opposition to create the conditions that will enable Erdoğan to be a democrat. Bülent Korucu in Zaman detects signs that a closure case against the main opposition party CHP may be under way. Ali Bulaç in Zaman writes that the AKP has destroyed Islamism and forfeited a century-old heritage.

By Toni Alaranta (vol. 8, no. 3 of the Turkey Analyst) 

Those who claim that democracy in Turkey has been handicapped because of the repressive “Kemalist” regime overlook that the conservative right has totally dominated Turkish politics. It is the traditions of the Turkish right that need to be scrutinized in the search for the matrix of current undemocratic practices. The Turkish Islamist poet and political ideologue Necip Fazıl Kısakürek is a key figure in this context. He propagated for a totalitarian Islamist-fascist regime in Turkey, to be ruled by an Islamic version of a Führer. And today representatives of the AKP point out that understanding Kısakürek is a precondition to understand the great “cause” (“dava”) that the AKP represents.