New Electoral Alliances in Turkey after the Regime Change to Presidentialism: A Path to Deepen Political Polarisation or Cooperation?

This study aims to understand how the regime alternation from parliamentary system to presidential system in Turkey influenced the party system when for the first time, political parties built ‘electoral alliances’ for parliamentary elections besides the presidential campaign. By analyzing the two blocs -the People’s Alliance led by the incumbent party JDP and National Alliance which was initiated by the centre-left main opposition PRP, this paper questions the logic of the electoral alliances in Turkey as the ideological distance is higher within the alliances (especially in the Nation Alliance) than it is between the alliances. In Presidential systems the party system is more likely to be two-party systems based on the competition of centre-left and centre-right parties as in USA or the election is ran by political alliances which is again determined on ideological divisions especially to have more seats in the plurality electoral systems as in France. Interestingly, in Turkish case the alliances were not formed on the main social cleavage: Islamist vs. Secularist, as both alliances comprise both Islamist and secularist/Kemalist parties. However, in common both alliances exclude the Kurdish-socialist party HDP (People’s Democratic Party) which gets more than eleven percent of the general votes. Hence, pre-election coalitions are unlikely formed for the parliamentary elections in PR electoral system as it is conducted Turkey. Moreover, in contrast to the further stability expectations party system converts to a more polarized and fragmented structure where the number of parties increased to 11 (which was only 4 under the previous parliamentary system) and the assembly resembles more like a bi-polar party-system rather than a two-party system. Based on this causality, this research aims to investigate, why electoral alliances emerged in Turkey for national and local elections, despite the fact that the parliamentary elections are held in PR electoral system and whether change to presidential system and these new alliances deepens the social polarization or creates opportunities for cooperation between the different segments of the society.