The governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is preparing to hold talks with opposition parties at the Turkish Parliament for a possible joint road map to a new constitution after a public holiday in early April, local media reported Wednesday.
While political parties are locked in on the upcoming local elections on March 31, they are also gearing up for the aftermath, with the new constitution being the critical top item on the agenda for the AK Party.
Turkish private broadcaster NTV said the ruling party is planning to kick off groundwork when Parliament resumes sessions on April 16 after Ramadan Bayram, or Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Islam's holy month of Ramadan.
The AK Party’s parliamentary group will meet with counterparts from opposition parties to consult their opinions on creating a composition from scratch. The sides will first discuss method rather than substance.
AK Party is aiming to pen a constitution with 90-100 articles, according to NTV.
The party’s constitutional overhaul proposal has gained pace after the elections in May 2023, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowing to “liberate Türkiye from a coup mentality.”
The debate over the constitution has been lengthy and for more than a decade, Erdoğan and the AK Party championed the struggle to gain the support of other political parties to draft a new constitution. The opposition has been reluctant and, at times, outright hostile to the attempts to create a new constitution. Their reasons are mostly political and they oppose a constitution to be “imposed” upon them by the government, despite Erdoğan’s repeated remarks that they want to consult with other parties before starting the work.
The current Constitution was enforced in 1982 following a military coup that led to the detention of hundreds of thousands of people along with mass trials, torture and executions, which still represents a dark period in Turkish political history.
The document has undergone nearly 20 amendments over the years to keep up with global and regional geopolitical conjectures. The most notable changes were introduced via referendums in 2010 by enabling the trialing of the 1980 coup plotters in civil courts and in 2017 by replacing the parliamentary system with an executive presidency.
In 2007, Erdoğan’s AK Party attempted an overhaul when it employed a commission to produce a draft, which was shelved upon heated criticism from the opposition. Since then, the party has been working on “stronger” material. Its proposed changes focus on freedom, the right to security, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech and the rights of women and the disabled.
The enhancement of these rights and liberties has seen setbacks in the bureaucracy that have prevented them from being appropriately implemented.
Party officials have said the plan has been prepared in accordance with the observations and reports of the international human rights groups. They seek cooperation from all political parties, expert academics, universities and the general public to give the document its final shape.
“But if the opposition refuses to support our draft, we will take our proposal to the public,” an AK Party official said last year.
At least 400 lawmakers must ratify a new constitution draft in Parliament. Anything over 360 votes would allow a referendum, allowing the people to decide.
The AK Party retained 268 seats in the May 14 parliamentary polls, far higher than its closest rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which won 169 seats. The AK Party, however, is part of the People’s Alliance, which also includes its closest ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and together, they have 323 seats.
