Turkey seeks caretaker government
Following the failure to form a government, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday gave Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu the mandate to form an interim cabinet. The opposition parties CHP and MHP have said they do not wish to participate in the government. This leaves the pro-Kurdish HDP as the only possible partner, which could become a problem for Davutoğlu, according to some commentators. Others warn that Ankara desperately needs stability.
AKP must now cooperate with the enemy
The fact that the only partner for a caretaker government is the left-wing pro-Kurdish HDP poses a dilemma for Prime Minister Davutoğlu, the liberal Hürriyet Daily explains: "After announcing that the peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) had been put into the fridge following the acts of terror reciprocated by massive military strikes, Erdoğan denounced the HDP as the 'political extension of the separatist terrorist organization.' It will not be very easy for Davutoğlu to defend a partnership with the HDP at a time when the funerals of soldiers and police officers are hitting front pages every other day."
Erdoğan could declare state of emergency
The boycott of the Turkish interim cabinet by the two largest opposition parties could force President Erdoğan to postpone the new elections, warns the centre-left daily Der Standard: "A return to the 1980s and 1990s, when the army in the south-east of the country was warring against the Kurdish guerrillas and leading their own population is a nightmare for the Turks. Opposition is already growing in the face of deaths every day. President Erdoğan and his puppet ministers and party functionaries are being made responsible for the outbreak of violence: first of all they promised pompously to find a solution for the Kurdish question, then came the fight 'to the end'. In the interim period there was an election defeat. The Kurdish party HDP stole Erdoğan's party's majority. But the new elections, which the head of state has forced, could be a fiasco. The all-party cabinet will consist only of Erdoğan's party and the Kurds; the others will boycott. Bad for Erdoğan. It is entirely possible that he will declare a state of emergency and postpone the election."
Ankara needs stability now more than ever
Nothing would be better for Turkey now than domestic stability, as the liberal daily NRC Handelsblad reminds us: "The country is struggling with major problems, both domestic and foreign, but is now forced to be managed by an interim government until the parliamentary elections. This despite the fact that Turkey is involved in a complex war, on the one hand against the Islamic State in Syria and on the other hand against the Kurdish PKK in Iraq. In Turkey itself, the peace process with the Kurds is over and violence is breaking out again. In this year 1.9 million refugees are expected. The economy is also not doing particularly well. … Under such circumstances, Turkey desperately needs a stable government with a democratic mandate. But it is uncertain whether the election on 1 November will lead to that."