ANKARA
Turkey's second largest parliamentary party on Wednesday said it would not take part in a caretaker government in the run-up to a fresh general election.
The Republican People's Party (CHP), which has 131 deputies in the Grand National Assembly, would traditionally have been asked to form a coalition government after the Justice and Development (AK) Party failed to do so.
However, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the former prime minister and AK Party leader, has not indicated he will give a mandate to the CHP to put together an administration.
"The CHP expects to perform the duty of forming a government and clearly views it as a seizure of authority if it is not tasked to do so," said Haluk Koc, the party’s deputy leader and spokesman, said in a news conference in Ankara.
Coalition talks under Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu were largely taken up with discussions with the CHP but last week he announced the gap between the two parties was too wide to bridge.
Following the failure of the coalition negotiations, a rerun of the June 7 general election is now expected to be held in early October.
During the interim period, a caretaker government of all four parliamentary parties is expected to run the country.
However, the CHP has now withdrawn in cooperation, following in the footsteps of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose leader Devlet Bahceli has said his party would not take part in an interim government.
Koc called on the “prudent” political parties to meet the nation’s expectations and accused Erdogan of “violating democratic practices and thwarting his party from forming a government” during the coalition talks.
Erdogan and Parliament Speaker Ismet Yilmaz were due to meet on Wednesday evening to discuss a fresh election.
In a caretaker government, cabinet posts would be distributed according to party representation in parliament. The AK Party is largest with 258 seats, followed by the CHP, then the MHP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) with 80 seats each.
The key portfolios of the interior, justice and transport ministries would be allocated to non-partisan independents. As there is only one independent deputy, two of the posts would go to non-parliamentarians.
