Early election needed if coalition talks fail: Erdoğan

Verda Özer - BEIJING

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has signaled the possibility of a snap election, noting that the country will need to go to the polls once more if ongoing coalition talks do not bear fruit.

“For more than 20 years, the [average] longest lifetime for coalition governments has been three or four months. There have been coalition governments that lasted even 16 months. We would wait for nothing if it were thought that a coalition government would be in favor of Turkey,” Erdoğan told reporters while heading to Indonesia from China as part of a visit to East Asia. 

Erdoğan said Turkey should hold a snap election if no coalition government emerges from multilateral talks between political parties, particularly between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP), but also continued contact between the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). 

“A minority government supported by one or two parties could manage to bring Turkey to elections,” he added.
 
The AKP won June 7 general elections, but it did not manage to win a parliamentary majority. Erdoğan commissioned AKP leader and incumbent Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in early July to form a new government, thus authorizing him to start coalition talks.