Why does the Palace want a constitutional amendment?

As is well known, officials at every level of the Presidential Palace have been calling for a new constitution for some time now.

Most recently, Mehmet Uçum, Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Legal Policies Board—who is also the architect of the current Presidential System—made the same call.

However, there is an interesting situation: while officials at every level say 'let's change the Constitution,' they do not clearly state why they want this.

Even Mehmet Uçum, who provides some details, does not say anything concrete. When listing the priorities for a new constitution, he does not express anything different from the current one. He repeats the qualities of the republic, secularism, the rule of law, and the social state. Uçum also speaks of a 'National Constitution.'

Some clues provided by Uçum are as follows:

“This constitution is problematic in terms of language and terminology consistency.

It does not meet current needs.

In the current constitution, there is an approach where rights and freedoms are not the rule, but limitations are.

As an organization, we chose the Presidential System as our model of government. There are certain needs regarding the development of the Presidential System.

At the same time, there are needs regarding the relationships between the powers, both executive, legislative, and judicial.”

WHAT IS THE REAL PURPOSE?

Recalling these words from Uçum, I asked an experienced figure who knows politics very well and closely monitors Ankara and the government about the ruling party's calls for a new constitution. They did not want their name to be written given the current democratic climate, but they gave the following answer to the question, “What could be the real purpose of the calls for a new constitution?”:

“What the ruling cadres understand by a new constitution is only two issues:

One is the obstacle to the current president being re-elected. The second is the 50 percent plus 1 threshold required for the presidential election. With the current constitution, Erdoğan cannot be a candidate in the next election, and it is also very difficult to find 50 percent plus 1 of the votes. With a new constitution, they will grant the president the right to be re-elected, and in case he cannot get 50 percent of the votes again, they will make 40 percent acceptable. They would also like to tinker with concepts like secularism and the republic, but let alone putting that on the agenda, it is difficult for them to even voice it.”

And the same person, after asking, “What is the government unable to do that it wants a new constitution?”, posed the following questions to the government:

• What part of the Constitution will you change, and what do you want the new constitution to cover?

• If we are going to put the same things in it, why should we struggle for a new constitution?

• You say 'National Constitution'; is the current constitution not 'National'? Do you have a definition of 'nationality' that we are unaware of?

• Is a constitution changed just because its language is problematic?

• In England, let alone all these details, there is no written constitution; despite this, doesn't the system work like clockwork, and isn't England still one of the world's leading countries?

• Is Turkey's most urgent problem the constitution, or inflation?

• Does the country need a new constitution, or to find jobs for the millions of unemployed people whose numbers are increasing every day?

• The state of education is obvious; 3-4 million students take the university entrance exam every year, and universities cannot even provide education at the high school level; will the constitution solve this?

• Turkey is behind where it was in 2000 in all economic and social indicators; will the constitution fix this?

• Will the new constitution solve the nepotism—that is, favoritism—that the current ruling cadres have turned into 'working legislation'? If the issue is the headscarf, is there any institution left where one cannot enter with a turban?

• Will the constitution fix the state of the judiciary?

I hope those who want a new constitution have answers to these questions.