AK Party to begin tour for coalition with CHP


Following İsmet Yılmaz's election as Parliament speaker, the next duty of Parliament will be to establish its bureau. Coalition talks are expected to start afterward when Justice and Development (AK Party) chairman and interim prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, will be assigned by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to form a government.

All eyes in Ankara are looking forward to the start of coalition talks, which are expected to start at the beginning of next week, but there will be a delay in the talks due to a disagreement between the political parties in the forming of the Bureau of the Assembly. The first thing the assembly is required to do is to establish its bureau, which normally consists of 15 deputies: the speaker, four vice speakers, seven secretaries and three quaestors. In order to ensure the proportionate representation of all political parties, the groups numbers of the bureau members are expected to be increased to 19. However, there is disagreement between the political party members as to the number of people who will be in the bureau. When the political parties reach an agreement on the bureau, it then needs to be approved by Parliament and this process is expected to be finalized by next Thursday. Thereafter Erdoğan will assign Davutoğlu to form a government. Therefore the first round of the coalition talks may start by next Friday.

According to the established practices of Turkish political history, the first coalition talks are expected to be held between the AK Party and the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). Giving the green light for a coalition with the AK Party by saying that they will not be seeking revenge, CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is expected to meet Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu next week. The CHP leader's steadfast attitude toward his 14 principles that the party presents for the coalition, it is expected that Kılıçdaroğlu might insist of the promises that he made during the election campaign in the upcoming meeting. He will also indicate that the party can commence coalition talks in the event of the principles being embraced. The principles, Kılıçdaroğlu claims, were constructed by society's common grounds. If this demand is approved by Davutoğlu, the two parties are likely to work together and work on the details of a coalition.