A constitution for Erdoğan. Consequences of the political conflict in Turkey. OSW COMMENTARY No. 213, 2016-06-01

Since mid-2015 Turkey has been affected by a deep internal crisis, caused by rising political polarisation, increased levels of terrorist threat (posed by the Kurds and Islamic radicals) and the revived conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). As a consequence of this crisis, over 350,000 residents of south-eastern Turkey have been forced to leave their homes. At the same time, due to the migration crisis and despite mutual distrust in relations between Turkey and the EU, cooperation between Ankara and Brussels has been intensifying. Turkey’s ongoing destabilisation does not challenge the status of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is de facto controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; paradoxically, it strengthens the party. The internal crisis which the authorities have been deliberately fuelling is an element of a plan to rubber-stamp political change by introducing a presidential system of government. This is happening amid a thorough reconstruction of the socio-political order which has been underway for over a decade. In the upcoming months it is expected to result in the constitution being changed and, as a consequence, the institutionalisation of Erdoğan’s autocratic rule.