New speaker – old constitution of Turkey
By Rufiz Hafizoglu
Adoption of a new constitution will be the priority of the new parliament, Ismet Yilmaz, the newly elected speaker of the Turkish parliament, said.
“This statement can be considered as a courageous action among other parties represented in the parliament,” he said.
Yilmaz explained this by the country’s actively developing policy and economy, although as opposed to the Justice and Development Party, other parties think otherwise. That’s why, they always opposed the adoption of a new constitution for the country.
“This is an action of passing from a parliamentary form of government to a presidential form,” the leaders of other parties said.
First, Turkish former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that Turkey needed a new constitution in October 2011, that was three months after the parliamentary election, in which the Justice and Development Party gained 49.83 percent of votes.
In addition, after the presidential election held in Turkey August 14, 2014, former Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu said that the new constitution was necessary for the democratization of the country.
But at the same time, the AKP did not expect that in spite of a series of victories over the last 13 years, the results of recent parliamentary election in the country would come as a surprise for the AKP.
AKP expected that having gained the highest number of votes, it would be able to form a government alone and adopt a new constitution by voting on the basis of majority of votes in the parliament.
But this did not happen.
More than 100 articles of the current constitution have been amended in Turkey during the rule of the AKP.
But this time the Justice and Development Party will unlikely manage to make changes to the country’s constitution.
Even if any changes are made to the constitution, Turkey won’t be able to switch from the parliamentary system to the presidential system.
This can happen if Turkey holds early parliamentary election as a result of which the Justice and Development Party gathers the required number of votes and forms the government on its own.
Even in this case, the party won’t be able to adopt a new constitution through voting in the parliament. Therefore, a nationwide referendum will be needed.
In one word, although Turkey’s new parliament speaker has emphasized the need for the new constitution, there are serious problems in this sphere for the present. Creation of a coalition government is one of them.
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