How will Turkey resolve the political deadlock?

The June 7 parliamentary elections marked the end of an era: The Justice and Development Party, which had single-handedly governed the country since 2002, lost its parliamentary majority at a time when the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) nearly doubled its share of the vote compared to four years ago. The election results were so exciting that HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş couldn't help but threaten the AK Party leadership the following day: "Don't be afraid," he roared. "We will give you a fair trial." A little over two months later, opposition leaders are waking up with a massive hangover.

How did we even get here? Two days after the election, Şafak Pavey, a Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy, famously bumped into Mr. Demirtaş and, in front of TV cameras, congratulated him. "We shook things up quite well," she remarked. Things looked good indeed. The dream, at the time, was to form a tripartite bloc, representing 60 percent of voters, against the AK Party. Reality hit on July 1, when AK Party politician and former Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz won a close race for speaker of Parliament. More than a few opposition figures publicly condemned the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for allegedly facilitating the AK Party candidate's victory. At some point, MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli remarked that Turkish voters who had sided with the HDP on June 7 were "dishonorable."

While the HDP, a national Kurdish movement, had been isolated in Parliament all along, the MHP leadership effectively encouraged a partnership between the AK Party and the CHP in the hopes that Turkish nationalists among the AK Party base would turn to the MHP in protest.

With the MHP and the HDP refusing to initiate coalition talks with the AK Party, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu reached out to CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to explore the possibility of cooperation. The leaders met three times, while their representatives talked for more than 35 hours over the past few weeks. Finally, on Thursday, Mr. Davutoğlu held a press conference to announce that the talks had been inconclusive and argue that the country was quite probably going to hold early elections. "The two parties have had differences of opinion for a hundred years," the prime minister said. "We disagree on a number of issues including foreign policy and education."

The main reason that the coalition talks fell through, however, was resistance from the electorate. For decades, Turkey's conservatives have blamed their problems on the Republican establishment in the upper ranks of state bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the past 13 years have been hell for the Republicans, most of whom believe that they are entitled to certain privileges as founders of the modern nation-state. The two groups, in this sense, have completely different views of the AK Party's reform agenda, which involved greater cultural rights for the Kurdish community and an expansion of religious freedoms among others.

Although President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday that the CHP's decision to turn down the AK Party's offer did not mark the end of coalition talks, there is a slim chance of the AK Party leadership reaching an agreement with the MHP by the time the clock runs out. Even if the parties strike a deal, it is quite likely that the agreement will involve a temporary government designed to attend to official business until early elections.

The question, of course, is whether early elections will resolve the political deadlock. Many observers seem to believe that uncertainty will end if the AK Party wins an additional 18 seats to reclaim its parliamentary majority. Others argue that the crisis will deepen if the situation remains unaltered. In truth, early elections will provide some answer regardless of the outcome. If the AK Party reclaims a parliamentary majority, Turkey will go back to business without further delay. If the campaign fails, the parties will accept that there are no other options available and form a coalition government shortly.