Turkey is a unitary presidential constitutional republic, a non-federal system that answers to a central government similar to the UK, as opposed to the federal state system of the USA. Turkey’s legislative branch is composed of the Grand National Assembly, while the executive branch is composed of the President and Cabinet.
Find out more about politics in Turkey by clicking through the tabs below.
One particular historical figure is so foundational to Turkish politics that it can’t be understood without at least briefly touching on his life.
For more than 600 years the Ottoman Empire ruled over large areas of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe. By 1914 the Ottoman Empire’s territory had been diminished until it controlled only the region now known as Turkey and a coastal strip of the Middle East. After the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in WW1; Britain, France, and Italy partitioned and occupied much of the erstwhile Ottoman territory. What followed is now known as the Turkish War of Independence. The Turkish National Movement, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, fought for Turkish self-determination and emerged victorious in 1923. Atatürk dissolved the Ottoman Empire and founded the Turkish Republic.
Kemal Atatürk became the first President of Turkey, serving in the role from 1923 until his death in 1938. He is often considered to be a revolutionary of sorts, due to the massive overhaul he brought to the region’s political system. The ideology behind his policies has come to be known as Kemalism, which was the official founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey. Kemalism is usually thought of as being composed of 6 component parts; Republicanism, Populism, Nationalism, Secularism, Statism, and Revolutionism.
To this day many Turkish political parties, often with drastically different policy positions, claim Kemalism as one of their central tenets.
The Turkish parliament is composed of a single house; the Grand National Assembly. The Grand National Assembly is composed of 600 members who are elected on 5 year terms, with seats being divided among 87 electoral districts based upon their respective populations. The seats for each district are allocated using proportional representation, but in order for a political party to win a seat in parliament it must win at least 7% of the national vote. The election threshold was previously 10%, the highest threshold of its kind in the world, but was lowered to 7% on the 30th of March 2022.
According to the Turkish constitution, the Grand National Assembly’s main role is to:
-
- Enact, amend and repeal laws,
-
- Debate and adopt the Budget Bills and the Final Account Bills
-
- Decide on a declaration of war
-
- Approve the ratification of international treaties
-
- Grant general amnesty and pardons
-
- Dismiss the President and Cabinet by calling for a new presidential election
Turkey previously had both a President and a Prime Minister, but transitioned to a presidential system in 2017, making the President both Head of State and Head of Government.
The President is directly elected for a 5-year term. If a candidate wins 50% of the popular vote then they become President, if no candidate reaches this threshold in the first round, then a run-off round will be held between the two most popular candidates from the first, with the winner becoming President. Presidential candidates must have a university degree and be at least 40 years old.
As head of both state and government the President has a broad array of powers and responsibilities, including that of Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish armed forces.
The President’s duties are to:
-
- Summon the Grand National Assembly to meet
-
- Appoint ministers to – and dismiss ministers from – the Cabinet
-
- Appoint the Vice-President
-
- Promulgate laws passed by the Grand National Assembly
-
- Return laws to the Grand National Assembly to be reconsidered
-
- Refer laws of dubious constitutionality to the Constitutional Council
-
- Preside over the National Security Council; an institution similar to the UK Ministry of Defence
The Cabinet is formed of ministers appointed by the President. Each Cabinet minister is head of a ministry dedicated to managing a particular sphere of Turkish society. In Turkey Cabinet ministers cannot be current members of the Grand National Assembly, and must therefore resign upon accepting an appointment to the Cabinet if they are a representative.
Major political parties in Turkey include:
-
- The right-wing Justice and Development Party, who are the current largest party, ruling in coalition with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party. They hold 42.6% and 11.1% of seats in the Grand National Assembly, respectively
-
- The centre-left Republican People’s Party, holding 22.7% of seats in parliament
-
- The left-wing People’s Democratic Party, with 11.7% of seats
-
- The right-wing Good Party, holding 10% of parliamentary seats
