Coalition prospect will appear in first round of talks: Deputy PM

ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

The Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said on June 14 a coalition could well be formed in the first round of negotiations between the political parties.

“How coalitions are formed depends on the dialog between the parties. Our president [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] will first appoint our prime minister [Ahmet Davutoğlu] for that,” Kurtulmuş told CNN Türk.

Kurtulmuş said a coalition would likely be reached in the PM Davutoğlu’s first round of negotiations.

The statement came a day after Erdoğan said on June 13 an early election would be inevitable in case of a failure by political parties to form a coalition within the deadline. 

“Our president [Erdoğan], as a politician who knows a Turkey that has suffered ‘early elections,’ has been against the idea of early elections all throughout his political life. He has always been so,” Kurtulmuş said when asked to comment on the remarks Erdoğan made on June 13 on the possibility of an early election. 

“If no coalition is formed, it would not be the end of the world. Everybody tells us to not leave Turkey without a government. If this [coalition] issue does not reach a conclusion, what our president said would not be the end of the world as well. Then we go to the polls again. If the ballot signals for a compromise, no political party has the right to say ‘no,’” he added.

A coalition option is on the table again as Turkey’s June 7 general elections gave no party the ability to form a one-party government. According to the preliminary results announced by the Supreme Election Board (YSK), the AKP will have 259 seats in the 550-seat parliament, the People’s Republican Party (CHP) will have 132 seats, the National Movement Party (MHP) will have 79 and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) will have 80 seats.