AKP’s Çelik says CHP-AKP coalition is sustainable with good protocol

Cansu Çamlıbel

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader’s chief advisor Hüseyin Çelik said his party and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) could move a coalition government ahead with a good protocol. 

Even though the AKP’s party grassroots signal a sustainable coalition government with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Çelik said a coalition government with the CHP would be more sustainable from his point of view. 

“Political parties whose grassroots are similar to each other hardly agree,” Çelik told daily Hürriyet. He likened two political parties, whose grassroots are closed in profile, to shopkeepers who are rivals. 
 
“We are at an advanced point with the CHP,” Çelik said, elaborating on results of the first round of last week’s coalition talks. 

Votes for the AKP have risen to 44-45 percent according to post-election surveys, Çelik said. Elaborating on faults by the AKP that lowered the party votes to 41 percent, Çelik cited mistakes on the candidate lists as one of the major elements, along with slackness in party organization. 

He also criticized the AKP’s third term rule and said it was one of the factors that led to the decrease of AKP votes. Some 30 members of the party, who were not nominated due to third term rule, are load-bearing columns of the AKP, according to Çelik.

AKP grassroots did not understand presidency system correctly, and even worried about the system due to “misperception operations,” he stated.

Asked if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in favor of a snap election, rather than forming a coalition government, Çelik cited a party meeting last week and said none of the prominent figures of the ruling party supposed this was the president’s preference. The president has not infixed himself against a CHP-MHP coalition government, as he cannot be part of the coalition negotiations process, Çelik stated.