Erdoğan says 'prepared' for hung parliament after snap polls

ISTANBUL

Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg on May 14, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he will be ready with “different plans” for the result of the June 24 snap presidential and parliamentary elections.

Asked what would happen if he wins the presidential election but the poll produces a hung parliament as it did in 2015, Erdoğan said “we will certainly have preparations for a result in the way you described.”

“But for matters to develop exactly in the way we planned, I mean Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, of course all of these will happen. But it looks at the moment like we are doing well and that in 40 days a plan that we wish for will emerge, and in 40 days Turkey will wake to a different era,” he added.

“We are working well and we would not allow a development that will not let the system work. There were some people who clogged the system after June 7. As the head of the republic I opened the blockage of the system and immediately November elections were called,” Erdoğan said, referring to two elections in 2015. In the June 2015 election the AKP failed to secure a parliamentary majority but after coalition talks failed it regained its majority in a snap election in November 2015.

“In November [2015], our people said this cannot happen and brought [the AKP] back to power again on its own. The system started functioning again,” he added.

Erdoğan’s ruling AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in a surprise move agreed to hold parliamentary and presidential elections on June 24, 2018, 17 months before the scheduled date.

In May, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the İYİ (Good) Party, the Felicity (Saadet) Party, and the Democrat Party (DP) signed a declaration marking a four-way opposition election alliance called the “National Alliance.”