Thursday, 06 August 2015

Kaplan: The Danger That Awaits the AKP

Hilal Kaplan in Sabah warns that the cadres of the AKP lack the experience of governing in a coalition. And besides, “inexperience” is not the only problem with the coalition alternative. The party stands to suffer more if it rushes into a coalition out of panic, combined with a feeling of having been bruised by the election result. The risk for the AK Party is that will become an “ordinary” party, if it tries too hard to convince the opposition parties to form a coalition. I’m very surprised by the commentaries in the AK Party friendly press these days; they are almost competing in telling us how good it was that the AK Party lost its majority. Is a coalition that would surprise us if it lasts six months what is going to do the AK Party good? If so, how exactly will it do the AK Party good? I would agree with this idea at least a little bit, if the prospective coalition partners – the CHP and MHP – happened to be opposed to the things that AK Party has been wrong about, and not the things that it has been right about. The CHP opposes the AK Party because it refuses to shake the hand of Syria’s Assad and Egypt’s Sisi. The MHP, meanwhile, is against exploring a peaceful solution of the Kurdish issue. The danger that awaits the AK Party is that it is going to enter a coalition with parties that are the very anti-theses of every one of its own theses, and that it will in the process become equalized with parties the biggest of which received 25 percent of the vote. Such a strategic mistake is going to lead voters looking at AK Party to say “you are now just like any other party.” When that day arrives, niceties like “global legitimacy, reconciliation, grand restoration” are not going to be of any use. 

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The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

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