Why has Turkey’s president called early elections?

SINCE the start of the year, the question on the minds of many Turks was not whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured, left) would call early presidential and parliamentary elections, but when. The answer arrived on April 18th, when the Turkish strongman pushed the vote forward by eighteen months, to June 24th 2018, earlier than almost everyone had expected. So what does Mr Erdogan hope to achieve by marching Turks to the polls for the sixth time in four years, and for the second time under emergency law?

Despite posting an impressive 7.4% growth rate last year, thanks largely to a credit boom and a series of stimulus measures, Turkey’s economy has begun to run out of steam. Inflation has been in double digits for over a year. In the space of a month, two of the country’s biggest conglomerates entered talks to restructure as much as $9bn in debt. The Turkish lira, having already lost over half of its value against the dollar since 2013, has been setting record lows almost every day since late March. The currency rebounded on news of the snap election, a sign that investors expect Mr Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AK) party to cruise to a win and reduce stimulus spending. Turkey’s leader is clearly aware that a sharp slowdown is imminent. The sooner the vote, the better his chances of sailing home before it hits.

The June elections will mark the first time Turkey votes for president and parliament on the same day. The change was part of a package of constitutional amendments that gave Mr Erdogan sweeping new powers (it passed by a razor-thin margin in a controversial 2017 referendum). He enters the race once again with a giant head start. The rudderless opposition now has barely two months to mount a campaign. The main secular party has yet to come up with a credible candidate for president. The leaders of the main Kurdish party are in prison on trumped-up charges of terrorism. Speculation is mounting that a newly hatched nationalist party will not be allowed to run for parliament. Its leader, a former minister of interior, is the only major politician so far to challenge Mr Erdogan officially for the presidency.

A fair election is not likely. Mr Erdogan has almost complete control over the media, including newspapers that account for roughly 90% of circulation. More than a hundred journalists are in prison. Under a state of emergency in place since July 2016 the president enjoys near-dictatorial powers. Hours after he announced the early elections, his MPs approved the extension of emergency law for another three months.