Turkey: Parliament dominated by nationalist right sworn in

After his victory in the May 28 elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be officially re-inaugurated as Turkey's leader on Saturday. But before that, it is the new deputies, elected during the legislative elections organized on May 14, who take the oath this Friday, June 2. The new hemicycle is more dominated than ever by the nationalist and conservative right.

The Turkish Parliament in Ankara in July 2018 (illustration image). AP - Burhan Ozbilici

Text by: RFI Follow

Advertising

Read more

With our correspondent in Istanbul, Anne Andlauer

Since the transition to hyper-presidential rule in 2018, the Turkish Parliament is no longer dominated by a party with an absolute majority, but by an alliance of parties. In the new hemicycle, the People's Alliance, which supports Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has 323 seats out of 600, which will allow the president to continue to pass the laws he wants. Faced with him, there are two alliances without any real means of legislative action, but which will continue to use the parliamentary platform to make the voices of the opposition heard in Turkey.

Of the 16 parties represented in this way, a dozen are on the right of the political scale, either in the camp of power or in that of the opposition. These are ultra-nationalist or conservative Muslim formations. The last elections even saw two small, openly Islamist parties enter the presidential alliance, i.e. on the benches of the assembly: the New Welfare Party (YRP) and Hüda-Par, which between them has nine seats.

Although supported by an absolute majority, Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not have, any more than in the previous parliament, a sufficient majority to revise the Constitution.

► READ ALSO: Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains master of Turkey after his victory in the presidential election

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

  • Turkey
  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan