Speculation is rampant that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) does not want to forge a coalition with the left-wing Republican People's Party (CHP) and that it is just dragging its feet to complete the 45-day legal requirement for setting up a coalition or pushing for early elections by the end of November.
There are also claims that AK Party Chairman and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who has again been charged with setting up a government, actually wants to establish a coalition with the CHP but that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan favors early elections and is blocking efforts to form a coalition government.
So all the focus is on the AK Party, Davutoğlu and the president. So if a coalition cannot be set up with the CHP, all the blame will be piled on the AK Party and President Erdoğan.
Yet, this is not the real picture. The actual picture is the fact that the CHP grassroots and some party officials simply cannot come to terms with forming a coalition with the AK Party, which they have not only strongly criticized for the past 13 years but against whom they feel deep enmity.
They simply cannot come to terms with being part of a coalition that will be constantly in contact with President Erdoğan. They simply cannot bring themselves to form a partnership with a party they accused of ruining the country and changing all its values.
The AK Party people are very angry with the CHP deputies who they say were extremely disrespectful to the president when he recently visited the Parliament plenary session. They point out to a recent statement by a CHP deputy who said if Davutoğlu fails to set up the coalition and the president has to assign CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to form the government, Kılıçdaroğlu will not go to the presidential palace to be assigned but he will send a deputy, which is simply ridiculous but shows the depth of the enmity towards Erdoğan who is still the mentor and moral leader of the AK Party.
Big business and some opinion leaders say a strong AK Party-CHP coalition is needed to overcome the growing problems in the country. This argument is doubtful yet just for the benefit of the doubt let us think that it is true. Then CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu has to overcome all the odds to come to terms with the realities that if he sincerely wants to establish a coalition government with the AK Party he has to abandon the deep-rooted antagonism against the AK Party and Erdoğan.
That is easier said than done. The CHP feels the AK Party made a mess of the country and a new coalition has to clear this mess. The AK Party, on the other hand, rejects having made such a mess and on the contrary says it did an excellent job that pulled the country from the depths and created a sound economy and a social-minded state that we cherish today. So will the CHP agree that there was no mess or will the AK Party agree that they messed up and the coalition has to clear this?
So really it is up to Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP to overcome its prejudices and forge a coalition with the AK Party.
Erdoğan and the AK Party are aware that early elections may not yield the results they expect and that we may be back to square one with a parliament struggling to set up a coalition in December. But they are also aware that setting up a coalition where all the past actions of the AK Party and Erdoğan will be questioned is not a way to run the country effectively. It is only a prescription for bickering and discord.
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