Erdogan will ask AKP to form Turkey coalition

Should the AKP fail in the talks, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would then ask the second-placed opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to form the government.

ISTANBUL // The Turkish president said a snap election would be “inevitable” if both the ruling AK Party and the main opposition fail to form a new government within the constitutional limit of 45 days.

Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he would ask the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to form a coalition government, after it lost its overall majority in legislative elections.

Should the AKP fail in the talks, Mr Erdogan said he would then ask the second-placed opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) to form the government.

Only if those talks failed would he use his right within the constitution to call early elections, he said.

“It is unthinkable that the country is left without a government,” Mr Erdogan told Turkish media.

“I will first give the mandate [for talks] to the head of the political party that won the most votes,” he said, referring to prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is also AKP leader.

“If it [a coalition] cannot be established, I will then give the mandate to the head of the party that finished second,” he said, referring to CHP chief Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Mr Erdogan said snap elections would then follow if these talks failed, but said he preferred to term them “repeat elections” rather than “early elections”.

He plans to invite the leaders of all four parties who won seats in parliament for talks next week.

The AKP, co-founded by Mr Erdogan, lost its overall majority in the June 7 polls for the first time since it came to power in 2002.

The party won the most votes but the result was a blow for Mr Erdogan, who had wanted to change Turkey’s constitution into a presidential system.

Mr Erdogan, premier from 2003-2014, insisted that his authority remained intact.

“I don’t find discussions of presidential authority correct when the president has been elected with 52 per cent of the vote,” he said referring to his victory in 2014 presidential elections.

He has given no indication of what his preferred combination for an AKP-led coalition would be.

* Reuters and Agence France-Presse