^{Photo: Anadolu Images}‍

A couple of weeks ago, Turkey was discussing a surprising situation for the country. The leader of the nationalists in parliament, Devlet Bahçeli, approached the DEM faction of the Democracy of Peoples (the new name of the Kurdish party) and greeted its leaders in a friendly manner.

Political observers called this event a surprise from the authorities. Devlet Bahçeli and his party have been Erdoğan's most loyal junior partners since 2016. What Erdoğan cannot say, Bahçeli says, and thanks to Bahçeli, Erdoğan himself has turned from a moderate supporter of Muslim values into a national Islamist.

Six months ago, it was impossible to imagine such public behavior by Bahçeli, and even more so, he called the Kurdish party a center of terrorism and demanded that it to be banned. Even the Ataturkist Republican People's Party often received epithets such as “partners of terrorists” for merely voting together with the Kurds on occasion.

However, the intrigue did not last long. The authorities decided to involve the Kurds in a new project - a “civilian democratic constitution.”

Erdoğan calls the current 1982 Constitution a legacy of the military junta. However, this Constitution has been amended so many times over the past 40 years that only the date of its adoption remains from the military. Erdoğan himself made the most sweeping changes in 2017, changing the balance of power and turning Turkey into a presidential republic. Years of talk about the new constitution often boil down to disputes over its first four chapters. The three chapters state that Turkey is a republic-secular, democratic, and social. The capital is Ankara, the official language is Turkish, the national anthem is “Istiklal Marşi,” and the flag is red with a crescent moon and a star. The fourth chapter does not allow changes to these provisions of the Basic Law.

From time to time, the government's camp makes statements that the first four chapters can be “positively amended,” and then another surge of quarrels and reproaches begins.

However, President Erdogan has long been unconcerned with the restrictions laid down in the first chapters of the Constitution. Formally secular and democratic, Turkey is in fact what Erdogan's government has shaped it to be for 23 years.

The last major constitutional reform allowed him to nullify his previous term in office and run for president twice more. Thus, his current third term is only his second, according to Turkish calculations. However, if the new Constitution is not adopted now, he will no longer be able to run for another term in 2028. That is why a new constitution is needed to extend Erdogan's term as Turkey's leader. However, in the current Turkish parliament, the government has neither two-thirds of the votes to adopt a new Basic Law nor three-fifths of the votes to send a parliamentary decision to a referendum. Out of 600 deputies, the ruling Justice and Development Party and the Nationalist Movement Party have a total of 316 votes. Either 400 are needed for a painless passage in the Mejlis, or at least 360 to send it to a referendum.

Initially, the government flirted with the opposition nationalists from the Good Party, who fought against Erdogan until 2023 along with the Ataturkists. However, the parties ran separately in the local elections. The Good Party received a crushing three percent and won only one regional center, and its leader, Meral Akşener, resigned because of this result.

However, the party still has about 40 MPs who could help Erdogan with the constitution. Ms. Aksener's influence on former party members has been limited. During the year, about 10 deputies left the Good Party faction, some joined the government, but after the local elections, the rest saw that the government had fewer votes, and all the defectors simply did not have a place in Erdogan's electoral list, while the CHP became the number one party, and there is a prospect of finding a place among the Ataturkists, they just have to wait another 4 years in opposition.

In this situation, the Kurds remained the only reserve for the government in the parliament.
After 2014, the relationship between Ankara and Kurdish politicians was very bad. The previous leader of the Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas, has been behind bars for 8 years awaiting trial. Turkey has good relations with Iraqi Kurdistan and the Barzani family that rules there. However, Ankara is not ready to recognize even the autonomy of the Syrian Kurds and considers them part of the terrorist Kurdish Workers' Party. But the Kurds have 57 seats in the Turkish parliament, which is enough to get 360 votes for the new Constitution and send it to a referendum. And Erdogan's government has never lost a referendum.

What will the Kurds get? Turkey may release Abdullah Ocalan, who has led the Kurdish Workers' Party for many years and has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali for life since 1999, from house arrest. This is a symbolic gesture that could bring ordinary Kurds to power. However, there is also a political one - the recognition of Kurdish cantons in Syria. In this case, the Kurdish Workers' Party will cease to be an armed group of mountain guerrillas and will come to power in one of the countries of the region where Kurds live compactly.

It seemed that Kurdish politicians had long ago figured out Erdogan and would no longer cooperate with him. However, recent statements by such patriarchs of Kurdish politics as Ahmed Turk show that the Kurdish elite has its own agenda, and the preservation of a democratic Turkey is not a priority for the Kurds, as the opportunity to strengthen their power in the Kurdish provinces is at stake.

‍

‍