Turkey: opposition alliance presents its programme
The six-party alliance that will run against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the presidential election in May has presented its election programme. Its main goal is to change the current presidential system back to a parliamentary one. Among other things, the president is to hold office for a maximum of seven years, have fewer veto rights in parliament and no longer be allowed to issue decrees. A mixed response in the press.
On the path to recovery
The alliance has hit the mark with its programme, journalist Murat Yetkin comments in his blog Yetkin Report:
“In this form - and I do not say this disapprovingly, but on the contrary, appreciatively - it aspires to be a project for restoration, for repair and healing. For over twenty years, the AKP government has taken important steps, especially in the area of infrastructure, but these steps have been taken without accountability, with unprecedented obfuscation, nepotism and impunity. Especially since the constitutional amendment of 2017 and the 2018 elections we have witnessed how the checks and balances mechanisms have unravelled under a single-handed executive power.”
Doomed to fail
Handelsblatt's Istanbul correspondent Ozan Demircan is not convinced:
“The country's third biggest party, the HDP, was not allowed to join the largest alliance against Erdoğan - because the nationalists are against it. And some figures of the CHP, which still traces its roots back to state founder Kemal Atatürk, are doing better than Erdoğan in the polls, but their party leader doesn't want to let them run against him. ... The alliance against Erdoğan is rapidly becoming one that is doomed to fail. Elections in Turkey are won by leaders like Erdoğan who do not make compromises. The discord among the opposition parties is damaging the alliance. No wonder Erdoğan is gaining ground again in the polls.”
Going backwards instead of forwards
The opposition alliance wants Turkey to go back to the way it was before, the pro-government Sabah scoffs:
“It’s not hard to imagine what concessions the opposition alliance will make in its strategy with Fetö [hypothetic organisation blamed for the 2016 coup attempt] and the PKK in mind. ... They want to stop all investments including the Istanbul Canal at any rate. ... Destroying major advances in the healthcare system is also among the objectives of the six-party alliance. City hospitals will be closed. People will have to stand in queues at state hospitals at four o'clock in the morning once more.”