Turkey government, nationalist opposition agree on stronger presidency
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced on Friday a preliminary agreement between his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on drafting a new constitution and introducing a presidential system of governance.
The AKP has long been an ardent proponent of constitutional reform, and particularly sidelining Turkey's parliamentary democracy for a presidential system in which its founder President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could hold larger powers.
"We have made a promise. We will change the constitution and elect our president, are you ready?" told PM Yildirim to his party's supporters during an opening ceremony for a tunnel in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, according to remarks carried by the government-run Anadolu Agency.
PM Yildirim and the fourth largest parliamentary block MHP's leader Devlet Bahceli said a day earlier in Ankara as a part of a series of meetings to discuss both issues.
"Mr. Bahceli, a patriot with common sense who cares about the country's future, took responsibility. We will, Allah willing, together bring the presidential system," continued the Turkish PM who without giving an exact timetable said the two parties would soon first seek the Parliament's approval then go for a referendum.
At the end of last month, Yildirim claimed if Turkey did not change its system of governance to a presidential one it may split up, a frightening prospect for many Turks terrified by Kurdish self-rule and separatism.
The far-right leader Bahceli declared on Twitter that he had "a fruitful meeting with the PM whose ideas were positive."
The main secularist opposition, Republican People’s Party (CHP) has vowed to resist any attempts of empowering Erdogan, a situation its leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has described as "dictatorship."
Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest group in the Turkish Parliament, whose two co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag and eight other lawmakers have now been in prison since November 4, has consistently opposed any plans to further empower President Erdogan.
On Tuesday, Demirtas said in a letter from a prison cell in the Turkish city of Edirne that his imprisonment was tied to "a one-man rule plan" in Turkey.
Erdogan whose office is largely ceremonial and has limited powers such as vetoing bills passed by the Parliament advocated that executive power for him meant political and economic stability during a Friday-aired interview with the Qatar-based Aljazeera.
Editing by Ava Homa