Davutoğlu ready for coalition talks with AKP roadmap

ANKARA

DHA Photo

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) has finalized its preparation for coalition talks by drafting a roadmap to guide Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu during the first round of meetings with other party leaders, which will kick off this week.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to invite Davutoğlu, the leader of the AKP, which is highly likely to become the major partner in a coalition, to form a government, most likely on July 7 or 8. This will launch a 45-day period to form the government.

“Inshallah [God willing] we will start negotiations next week so that our 78 million people are not left without a government,” Davutoğlu told supporters late July 3 in the central Anatolian province of Konya, his home region.  

Davutoğlu said he would meet with each of the three other parties in parliament, the second-placed Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

He said he would prioritize talks with the CHP and MHP as his party’s top brass were veering towards an alliance with them, while noting his party was not presently considering forming a coalition with the HDP.

In their roadmap, the ruling party, which lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 election, paid special attention to particularities cited as “sine qua non” by the CHP and the MHP, while also keeping the door open for creating new offices with a separation of some ministries, such as the Culture and Tourism Ministry, into their constituent parts.

The roadmap is a product of commissions formed inside the AKP, with a political affairs commission having focused on the “general party principles” of the CHP, the MHP and the HDP. Among those principles, the commission designated the ones which match the AKP’s principles as well as the ones which are different. 

The CHP’s precondition to fight against corruption for a coalition and the MHP setting the “complete suspension” of the resolution process as a precondition have been particularly underlined in the roadmap.

The AKP classified the other parties’ promises according to their feasibility and marked the common points of those promises in the economic, political and legal fields. 

The party has decided not to allow steps that would jeopardize economic balances. Still, having reviewed promises made to pensioners by both the CHP and the MHP, it will not categorically refuse discussing these promises. 

The AKP plans to invite its potential coalition partner to discuss these matters after forming the coalition, when the minor partner will have a chance to see budget balances and financial charts in detail.

During the election campaign, the CHP promised to raise the minimum wage to 1,500 Turkish Liras and also lift income tax thresholds, while the MHP pledged to increase the minimum wage to 1,400 liras and give households whose total income is below minimum wage an additional monthly stipend for public transportation. 

As for the second round of talks, Davutoğlu’s AKP has been reviewing protocols made by past coalition governments in order to draft a coalition protocol. 

In case of an eventual agreement, the following and final stage will be the share of ministries and institutions.