Turkey: the opposition is in battle order against President Erdogan<

Described as weak and divided, the opposition to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to form a common front in view of the early elections – legislative and presidential – called in disaster for June 24. In an unexpected move, the Republican People's Party (CHP, Kemalist), the main opposition party, came to the aid of the Good Party, a small anti-Erdogan movement created in the fall of 2017. Fifteen CHP deputies officially joined its ranks on Sunday 22 April, thus enabling it to have the twenty representatives necessary to declare its own parliamentary group and enter the race.

According to electoral law, for a party to be eligible, six must months have elapsed between its founding congress and the date of the elections, or that the party in question has a parliamentary group, i.e. twenty deputies. “It was about pushing back the traps set for democracy,” explained Bülent Tezcan, the CHP spokesman.

This is bad news for Mr. Erdogan. His formation, the Justice and Development Party (AKP, Islamo-conservative), in control of the country since 2002, had joined forces with the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) for the elections. However, the hard core of the Good Party is made up of ultranationalist cadres from the MHP. Others may follow.

By obtaining his majority for the election to be held sixteen months before the scheduled date, President Erdogan was counting on keeping this troublesome opponent out of the race. It was necessary to pull the rug from under the feet of the formidable Meral Aksener, the president of the Good Party, former interior minister and figure of Turkish nationalism who promises at will to "bring the sky down on the heads" of the Islamists -conservatives.

"A disaster"

The tactical rapprochement of the two opposition parties has greatly upset President Erdogan. "That Parliament is in such a state is a disaster", he fumed on Monday, after leaving the Hemicycle in a sign of dissatisfaction with the criticisms expressed there on the maintenance of the state of emergency, imposed continuously since the failed putsch of July 2016. “The people will also leave you on June 24! “, predicted Meral Aksener on his Twitter account.

Since the announcement of the early elections, the opposition parties have increased their consultations. After seeing Meral Aksener on Saturday 21 April, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the head of the CHP, met two days later Temel Karamollaoglu, the leader of the Party of Happiness (SP), a formation stemming from political Islam which was the matrix of the AKP. Mr. Karamollaoglu is also due to meet Abdullah Gül, the former president (2007-2014) who was Recep Tayyip Erdogan's most faithful traveling companion for a long time before distancing himself.

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