Turkey: A New Government With An Old Composition – OpEd
By JTW
By Rufiz Hafizoglu*
There are at least three reasons for the victory of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Nov. 1 parliamentary election.
The first reason is the stance taken by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), or in other words, its refusal to create a coalition government together with the AKP after the parliamentary election held in June this year.
Even Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said yesterday that the AKP won the election due to the MHP’s mistakes.
The second reason for the AKP’s victory at the election has been the rising activeness of terrorist organizations on Turkey’s soil, which brought the AKP to a decisive fight against terrorists.
And the third reason is that AKP, unlike other parties in Turkey, has been all this time focusing on the country’s economic development.
For instance, Turkey’s south-eastern provinces have always been backward regions in terms of economy. But since 2002, the date when the AKP came to power in Turkey, these regions have been seeing a special care for their development.
Following the election, the first step of the AKP will be the creation of a new cabinet of ministers.
Undoubtedly, the new cabinet of ministers will include the old AKP staff: Omer Celik, Ali Babacan, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Cemil Cicek, Mehmet Ali Sahin, Taner Yildiz, Besir Atalay and Bekir Bozdag, who were elected in the snap parliamentary election.
The risk is past for Turkey’s energy projects the future of which was depending on the election results. First of all, it is about such an important energy project as TANAP.
But as distinct from TANAP, the implementation of the Turkish Stream project can delay for a long time.
There is no point to expect significant changes in Turkey’s policy in the region, especially on Syria.
Moreover, Turkey’s South Caucasus policy is unlikely to change either.
*Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agency’s Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
