TURKEY/ The Puzzle of the Turkish Parliament

If June 12 marked the biggest triumph for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Recep Tayipp Erdogan, only a few days afterwards, a new chapter was opened in the political history of Turkey, which found itself confronted with a serious and important crisis.

For the first time since the foundation of the Republic, the ceremony of the opening of Parliament was boycotted by the opposition parties because some of the elected candidates, who had previously been imprisoned under suspicion of terrorist activities and plots against the government, cannot enjoy parliamentary immunity and cannot obtain the seats that await them in the National Assembly.

According to statements by the judges, eight representatives cannot sit in Parliament and therefore two of the parties in question, the BDP—the Kurdish Party—and the CHP—The Republican Party—refused to swear-in as members of the current legislature. Instead, the nationalist MHP, which has an empty seat anyway, expressed its deepest respect for the will of the nation, but participated in the opening.

Behind the act of protest of the BDP and CHP, there is the conviction that that AKP is exerting some kind of influence on the decisions of the Court which is holding their representatives in prison. The government defends itself by claiming not only that the justice system exercises its power independently, but also that the crisis is the result of a strategy planned on purpose by the opposition to attempt to diminish the action of the government.

The boycott, however, has not blocked the system and Recep Tayipp Erdogan has been resolute in nominating new ministers and in making the announced changes to the structure of the new cabinet, abolishing eight ministers, introducing six new ones, and merging and transforming two more for a total of 26 ministers, including the Prime Minister and the four Vice-Prime Ministers. But the most important new thing is the introduction of the Vice-Minister positions, held by people nominated to assist each minister in his duties.