‘Forced coalition’

Cumhuriyet columnist Kemal Can comments on the election results: The most basic result of the June 24th elections is that the two-block political board, which has been in place for almost five years, has hardly changed. It was revealed that the main line and the voting groups did not shift towards each other at all. We see a slide of votes within the ruling group itself. There is a shift from the AKP, but it seems that it was directed towards the MHP, not the opposition block. We see that the MHP has thus balanced the vote lost to the Good Party, and we see that a ruling bloc is continuing just above the 50 per cent borderline in total. But a very prominent effect of these election results here is the registration of the fact that the presidential government system, envisaged as a system to end coalitions once put into effect, has to proceed with a mandatory and forced coalition. In fact, we have seen this very clearly in both Erdoğan's and Bahçeli's later statements. I think we are headed for a governmental era that started off with an alliance and will continue with a forced coalition, a process that will continue to produce crises and pose problems.