Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is attempting to cooperate with the secular opposition to create a new constitution so that he can run for re-election, analysts told The Media Line. He is reportedly set to meet the opposition leader in the coming days.
“Erdoğan’s just trying to diversify his options … he likes to have options,” Unlühisarcıklı said. He also stated that people in Turkey want competing parties to talk to each other and that he believes that Erdoğan could make concessions to the opposition to get support for a new constitution. “I think it’s a very good sign, even if it does not produce any results because, first of all, when the leaders are on talking terms, I think it will also reflect on their voters. Maybe it’ll help mitigate the deep polarisation in Turkey.
Ozel rejects a new constitution
So far, Özel has rejected the idea of supporting a new constitution. “If the ruling party abides by the current constitution, we would get closer to discussing a new one. We are far off from that point at the moment,” he told Reuters last month. He has also raised the possibility of early elections, putting Erdoğan under pressure.
Both the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, and the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavaş, polled as more popular figures, and the fact neither of them was the candidate in last year’s presidential election is seen as a key reason why the CHP lost.
Sezer told The Media Line that the public’s discontent over the economy and the poor results of the local elections pushed Erdoğan to contact the opposition. “The old policies of escalation will not be beneficial for him,” Sezer stated
