Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.7
By Jamila Jafarova - Trend:
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party can change the constitution even without the support of opposition parties if it wins in the parliamentary election to be held on June 7, 2015, Paul Levin, the director of Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies told Trend.
"It depends on whether the ruling party will have enough votes in the coming elections and that depends on what happens to the Peoples' Democratic Party - the pro-Kurdish party," said the expert.
The expert believes that the Peoples' Democratic Party intends to get past the 10 percent barrier to entry into parliament, adding that it is far from certain that they can get 10 percent of the votes.
"And if they do not, in many provinces the seats they lose will go to the ruling party, the Justice and Development Party instead, " said Levin. " If that happens, the Justice and Development Party may have enough seats in parliament to change the constitution even without the support of opposition parties."
He added that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan needs to have strong checks and balances on presidential power for this.
Erdogan himself has repeatedly stated that Turkey needs a new constitution.
Moreover, following the Turkish presidential election held on August 14, 2014, Turkey's then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a new constitution is needed for Turkey's democratization.
Davutoglu said the new government would aim to work out a democratic constitution.
Turkish then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to the leaders of the oppositional Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party in late October 2011 where he called on them to participate in the talks on working out a new constitution.