Turkish PM returns mandate to form government to Erdogan

Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu officially returned the mandate to form a government to President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, the presidency said in a statement, after failing to find a junior coalition partner for his AK Party.

The move, widely expected after coalition talks between the AKP and the nationalist MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) broke down on Monday, could now lead Mr Erdogan to give the mandate to parliament’s second-largest party, the secular CHP, although it, too, is seen as being unable to form a government.

If no government is formed by August 23rd, Mr Erdogan must dissolve Mr Davutoglu's caretaker administration and call on an interim power-sharing government to lead Turkey to a new election in the autumn.

Turkey has not seen this level of political uncertainty since the fragile coalition governments of the 1990s – turmoil it could do without as it takes a frontline role in the US-led campaign against Islamic State insurgents in Syria and battles Kurdish militants at home.

Mr Davutoglu met the leader of the right-wing opposition MHP on Monday in a last-ditch effort to agree a working government, but the nationalist leader refused all the options he presented.

An interim power-sharing government would theoretically hand cabinet positions to four parties with deep ideological divisions, paralysing policy-making and deepening the instability that has sent the lira currency to a series of record lows.

But even forming such an interim “election cabinet” is likely to be difficult.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said it would offer representatives to take part, but the nationalist MHP has made clear it would not countenance doing so.

Senior AKP officials had been betting that the nationalists, virulently opposed to greater Kurdish political power, would do anything possible to avoid a scenario in which the HDP held cabinet seats, and that they might support a short-lived minority AKP government in return for a new election.

But nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli has ruled that out, leaving an interim power-sharing cabinet as virtually the only option. He is apparently calculating that the prospect of Kurdish politicians in ministerial positions will so enrage those on Turkey’s political right that they will flock to support his party at the next election. – (Reuters)