Op-ed: Upcoming elections in Turkey will have repercussions for Turkish democracy

Thus, perhaps even more crucial than the outcome of the vote itself on June 24 is whether the electoral process will be demonstrably free and fair. If the elections are characterized by inconsistencies and injustices similar to those that marred the ones in 2015 and the April 2017 referendum, no one in Turkey truly stands to gain. Erdoğan and the AKP enter the elections with the promise of phasing out the country’s battered parliamentary system and replacing it with a presidential one. If the government doesn’t want to be accused of also phasing out the rule of law and the very concept of democratic elections in Turkey, it should ensure that all contestants enjoy the freedoms of participation, speech, and media, as well as a rigorous monitoring of the elections. A failure to ensure these standards risks not only bringing further polarization and contestation as Turkey prepares for local elections in 2019, but could also generate severe doubts about the legitimacy of the new presidential system itself.
Read the full article here: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/04/23/turkeys-snap-electio…