The political system has changed and politics will be unavoidably shaped in line with this new arrangement. The law of election and political parties must change as soon as possible in order to make the system stronger.
A more democratic and publicly-accountable system, which takes the nation as its center is being introduced, in which tutelary institutions cannot intervene. Of course, the most important thing is that 50 percent plus one of the votes is needed to come to power now. We will see how this is and will be a changing force after the first election to be held in 2019.
Well, are the political parties preparing for this new period? As far as I'm concerned, the opposition that is afraid of failing to surpass 50 percent has no such concern. They are trying to overcome this period in different ways, but they have a tough task. That is because every party needs to be able to produce new politics and to renew its staff.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is the only party that is likely to make this change, while how it will do this is an object of curiosity. The AK Party, which has been in power for 15 years, has achieved a strong motivation with its founding leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, becoming the party chairman again, but he himself said that this would not be enough during the extraordinary congress.
"We will update all of our provincial organizations, district organizations and town organizations until the end of this year, we will revise them. This is because there is a metal fatigue and we need to overcome this. Therefore, we need to be prepared for 2019 hopefully with a much more dynamic team," he said.
The magic word is "metal fatigue" which is something normal and inevitable in a party that has been in power for nearly 15 years. There are habits, special relations established on an organizational level, and positions within the party that can be described as bureaucratic oligarchy – which makes renewal compulsory.
But there is another important factor that entails renewal: The political bar is 50 percent plus one. In the past, it was possible to receive 30 to 40 percent of the vote by reaching out to 30 percent or 50 percent at the most. Now, however, this will not be easy. If you cannot touch 80 percent of the society, it is impossible to receive 50 percent plus one of the votes.
This is exactly why Erdoğan kept the bar much higher, as he said, "We have to target the whole of our nation in order to surpass 50 percent in the ballot boxes…"
Here, the real expectation is the change that will be made in the party and local organization management who will be able to touch the public. There is a serious expectation and anxiety in the AK Party base in this sense.
The AK Party has millions of members and a trained base. However, the party is still dominated by its staff, whose relations with each other have turned into status quo, and the same figures stand out in province and district administrations and the central office. The satisfaction of minor changes in these issues is being followed by anxiety within the party base.
"Will it be a new organization mainly with the old party managers? Everyone will continue to maintain their established relations with each other. Now that we are entering a new period, in which we need to reach out to at least 80 percent of the society, then we must do the necessary. There is no new staff problem for a party that reaches millions," they say.
The expectations of the AK Party base match Erdoğan's determinations. However, the object of curiosity is when and how the need of this accord will be fulfilled.