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Politics of Türkiye – State Structure & Parties

Political system

Under the 1982 constitution, Türkiye was a parliamentary democracy with a Council of Ministers chaired by a Prime Minister and an independent judiciary. In September 2010, a referendum decided on the most comprehensive constitutional amendment since 1982. A separation of powers exists in Türkiye only to a limited extent.

With the constitutional referendum of 2017, the parliamentary system with a largely representative office of president was to be converted into a presidential system, probably at the end of 2019; as a result of the early presidential and parliamentary elections on 24 June 2018, this has now already happened. This abolished the Council of Ministers as the supreme executive body. The directly elected president now alone heads the executive. The president's influence on appointments to the courts was extended, and the special rights of the armed forces were almost completely eliminated.

The Constitutional Court is one of the supreme courts of Türkiye. It rules on the constitutionality of the laws passed by parliament. In 2005, a woman, Tülay Tuğcu, was elected President of the Constitutional Court for the first time; she held the office until 12 June 2007.

Local self-government is only very weakly developed in Türkiye.[65]

The domestic intelligence service Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı, with extensive powers, watches over, among other things, the internal order, constitution and security of the country. The largest trade union confederations by membership are Türk-İş (moderate, with approx. 2.13 million members), DİSK (left-leaning, with approx. 0.35 million members) and Hak-İş (Islamic-conservative, with approx. 0.36 million members).

Constitutional reality under the state of emergency

After the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, a state of emergency was in force in Türkiye; it was regularly extended by parliament for three months at a time[72] and expired in July 2018. As a result, the constitutional reality in Türkiye is far removed from a parliamentary system and corresponds to a presidential system; however, unlike the ideal-typical presidential system of government, the cabinet chaired by the president can issue decrees with (provisional) force of law.[73] This was already common practice under Turgut Özal.

Situation since July 2018

In July 2018, the constitution adopted on 16 April 2017 came into force. With the extended rights of the executive, in particular of the President, essentially nothing has changed compared with the two-year state of emergency.

The government reporting to President Erdogan was sworn in on 9 July.

After the end of the state of emergency, existing anti-terror laws were tightened.

Parliament

The legislative body in Türkiye is the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi). It consists of 600 members of parliament who are directly elected by the people for four years. From the age of 18, every citizen of Türkiye is entitled to vote and also obliged to vote. Voting at Turkish border crossings is possible. The last parliamentary elections took place on 24 June 2018. Eight parties have at least one member: the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Republican People's Party (CHP), the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Good Party (İYİ), the Felicity Party (SP), the Democrat Party (DP) and the Great Unity Party (BBP).

The composition of parliament is as follows:

Foreign policy

Since its alignment with the West, the constants of Türkiye's foreign policy have included the wish to join the European Union and the prevention of an independent Kurdish state. Türkiye regards itself as the protecting power of the Turks in the Balkans and of the Turkmens of Iraq. In addition, Türkiye seeks to take a leading role among the Turkic states (Northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan) of Western and Central Asia and to improve its relations with the autonomous Turkic-speaking republics and regions.

Unusual for a state with a Muslim majority are Türkiye's good relations with Israel; among other things, joint military manoeuvres are held regularly. However, a crisis in relations has been looming since the Gaza war of late 2008.[94] In 2009 and after the Ship-to-Gaza incident in 2010, relations with Israel deteriorated further.[95] On the other hand, relations with Islamic countries have improved.

Relations with neighbouring states

  • Greece: Regional areas of conflict are the spheres of control in the Aegean and the Cyprus conflict. In the Aegean, the issue is the course of the border between the two countries. Defining the border is highly controversial because economic and military interests are at stake. Economically, it is about potential oil deposits that both countries want to exploit. Recently, however, there has been a marked easing of tensions between the states, although the disagreements have not yet been resolved (as of 2004).
  • Cyprus: There are disagreements over the Turkish soldiers stationed in Northern Cyprus. The attempt by the Republic of Cyprus to station anti-aircraft missiles on the island almost led to war in the mid-1990s. In the end, the missiles were not stationed. During Cyprus's EU Council Presidency, Türkiye announced that it would freeze all relations with the Republic of Cyprus.
  • Iraq: Türkiye saw a possible reason for war in the event of a Kurdish victory in Kirkuk in the elections of 30 January 2005 and its incorporation into the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in Iraq. The background is that the rich oil fields in Kirkuk would make an economically viable, independent Kurdish state conceivable. A Kurdish state in northern Iraq could reignite the Kurdish conflict in Türkiye. Despite many disagreements, a surge of investment by Turkish companies has developed in the Iraqi Kurdish region. Furthermore, Ankara has opened a consulate in Erbil.
  • Syria: A bone of contention between the two states for decades has been the Turkish province of Hatay, which until 1938 belonged to what was then the French Mandate of Syria and was annexed to Türkiye in 1939. There are also disputes over the waters of the Euphrates. The construction of dams as part of the Southeastern Anatolia Project leads to fears on the Syrian side that Türkiye could one day use the water as an instrument of power. Syria's support for the PKK prompted Türkiye to threaten Damascus with war in the late 1990s. Syria also felt threatened by the close military cooperation between Israel and Türkiye. After a period of rapprochement between the two countries, relations deteriorated massively in the course of the civil war in Syria in 2011, leading to the Syrian-Turkish conflict in 2012. The Turkish government repeatedly called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign. Since May 2012 at the latest, fighters of the Syrian opposition were trained and armed by the Turkish intelligence service. Today, relations with Syria are very tense because of the violence of the Assad regime against the people of its own country. Ankara imposed sanctions, all accounts of persons close to the regime were frozen, and arms deliveries to the Syrian government were prohibited. Türkiye took in numerous Syrian refugees. However, the hope of a rapid fall of Assad, after which they could have returned, was not fulfilled, so that their number today (August 2014) is around 1.4 million. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu declared at the AKP annual congress that the Turkish flag should fly side by side with that of Palestine, of a free Syria and of other states.
  • Armenia: Today's Armenian government denies the genocide against the Turks of 1915/16 and tries to dissuade other states from officially recognising the genocide. Instead, they claim that they themselves fell victim to a genocide. They vehemently deny their terrorist attacks on the Turkish civilian population by the Armenian gangs. Armenia's occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which under international law belongs to Azerbaijan, strains relations with Türkiye, as Türkiye regards itself as the protecting power of Azerbaijan. To this day, Armenia does not recognise the border with Türkiye under the Treaty of Kars (1921). In October 2009, Türkiye and Armenia signed an agreement on normalising interstate relations and establishing diplomatic relations, but its ratification failed.
  • Bulgaria: The oppression of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, which had immigrated to Bulgaria at the time of the Ottoman Empire, caused tensions between the two countries during the Cold War. In the course of resistance against Bulgaria's former communist regime, there were occasionally terrorist attacks by the oppressed Turkish minority against targets in Bulgaria (including a bomb attack on a passenger train in 1985). In addition, Türkiye refuses to pay compensation running into billions to descendants of the Bulgarians expelled from the territory of today's Türkiye (Anatolian Bulgarians). Today the governments of both countries maintain good relations, not least because of the importance of the economy.

International organisations

Türkiye has been a member of NATO since 1952 and an associate member of the predecessor organisations of the EU since 1963, and for over four decades it has been seeking negotiations on full membership, first in the EEC, later in the EC and most recently in the European Union. On 16/17 December 2004, the European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Türkiye on 3 October 2005. Both the European Commission and the European Parliament had previously supported this. Although the negotiations began on time, opponents of accession continue to strive for a privileged partnership. However, this is rejected by the Turkish side and most EU member states.

In addition, Türkiye is a member of the following supranational organisations:

  • United Nations with specialised agencies (UN, 1945)
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1948)
  • Council of Europe (1949)
  • EC Association Agreement (1963)
  • Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC, 1969)
  • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD, 1990)
  • Central Asian Summit of the Turkic Republics (OATCT, 1992)
  • Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC, 1992)
  • International Monetary Fund (IMF)
  • Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE, 1973)
  • European Customs Union with the EU (1996)
  • Group of Eight Developing Countries (1997)
  • G-20
  • EU accession candidate (since 1999, negotiations since 3 October 2005)
  • Alliance of Civilizations
  • Eurasian special unit with military status (TAKM, 2013)
  • Turkic Council (2009)
  • European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN (associate member since 2014)
  • Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP, observer status since 2014)