It is no secret that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has had his eye on the country's top public office for quite some time now. Unwilling to end his political career just yet, however, Mr. Erdoğan has repeatedly voiced his desire to oversee Turkey's transition from a parliamentary democracy into a semi-presidential, if not presidential, system. While the three-term incumbent's presidential dreams seemed in shambles amidst corruption allegations against several members of his administration and a nasty break-up with former allies, the Gülen Movement, yet another landslide victory in the most recent local elections established beyond all doubt that the ruling party's designated candidate would win the upcoming presidential election in August 2014. Over the last few weeks, public debate thus rapidly shifted from late-night leaks on Twitter and YouTube to the country's future after the 2014 presidential race. An interesting development, at the same time, was that the vast majority of political commentators stopped questioning whether Mr. Erdoğan can win the presidential race and instead immediately began speculating about his presidential style and his party's chances of survival in his absence. Meanwhile, Mr. Erdoğan's political opponents seem unable to find a champion to possibly challenge one of the most phenomenal leaders –and, more importantly, campaigners- in Turkey's modern history. In the absence of any notable contenders in sight, the AK Party leadership turned to the electoral system and announced that they had started working on a bill to distribute 550 seats in the legislative chamber among 550 electoral district across the nation. Although the ruling party is yet to share their proposal's details with the public, the overall sense is that the new electoral system will heavily borrow from existing practices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada among other countries. Considering that amendments to the country's electoral laws cannot come into effect unless the President signs them into law at least one calendar year before the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2015, the AK Party will have to push proposed changes through Parliament, where it enjoys a comfortable majority, over the next few weeks. The speed at which electoral reform came to the forefront of public debate, however, has left commentators and politicians polarized and confused. Having failed to draft a new constitution that would have paved the way for presidentialism, sceptics argue, the ruling AK Party now seeks to decentralized political parties and disperse legislative power in order to strengthen the president's role within the political system. On 22 April, Ret. Amb. Faruk Loğoğlu, who currently serves as deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), announced that proposed changes to the country's electoral system would create a dictatorial regime. Mr. Loğoğlu is hardly alone: The overall sense among opposition ranks has been that Prime Minister Erdoğan's plans will effectively work to boost his own power and jeopardize separation of powers and the rule of law. Proponents, however, believe that establishing single-seat districts would represent the next step in the ruling party's legislative agenda. Since the Prime Minister rolled out his government's latest democratization efforts in September 2013, the AK Party sponsored a number of legislations that sought to empower smaller political parties as well as to prevent discrimination against Kurds and religious Muslims among other disadvantaged social groups. Electoral reform, they add, will eliminate the 10-percent national threshold and thereby grant grassroots movements access to national politics while forcing overly centralized political parties to share power with local organizations. Leaving arguments aside, the government's latest reform initiative remains unlikely to encounter any problems either on Parliament floor or with the general public. Having survived a nerve-wrecking campaign season, the AK Party is unlikely to be hit with a new wave of resignations which could, at least on paper, hurt its law-making capabilities. Furthermore, the ruling party does not have to amend the Constitution in order to change the country's electoral system –a fact that significantly expedites the legislative process and avoids the risk of any last-minute surprises at the ballot box. Meanwhile, the general public is likely to lend support to proposed changes as the primary selling point for election reform will be the abolishment of the 10-percent national threshold, a source of protest from across the political spectrum.
