Turning a Parliamentary Republic into a Semi-Presidential Country:

The Turkish Example

Dr. Şule Özsoy

I Introduction:

The main purpose of this paper is to deduce an understanding from the Turkish

experience about the possible effects of direct presidential elections on workings of

parliamentary systems. Any such inquiry should starts by asking if “it is possible to

turn a parliamentary system into semi-presidential by only changing the method of

presidential election or when a parliamentary republic chooses to elect its

president directly, it only becomes a parliamentary system with a president”. The

paper looks for answers to this question in Turkey where relevant practices have been

and will be experienced.

Turkey is also a fruitful search field in the long run to test the theoretical ground. The

country has had a parliamentary system since 1908 with interventions and never had a

system of direct popular elections to elect her presidents since she became a Republic in

1923 until 2007. In 2007 the idea of a popularly elected President was endorsed by a

clear majority % 68.95 of the voters, in a referendum following the Turkish Grand

National Assembly’s [Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi] (TGNA) failure to elect the new

President in May 2007. What is interesting and relevant for this inquiry is that

constitutional amendments for direct presidential elections were made without touching

other constitutional features of the parliamentary government or the powers of the

president.

In this paper I accept semi-presidential systems as separate governmental systems

from parliamentary ones. Therefore I will start with the definition of a parliamentary

system and its distinctive features from a semi-presidential one. The focus of this paper

is not on the most accurate way to define or classify parliamentary and semi-presidential

forms of government, but to inspect the impacts of dual legitimacy in a government

structure where the prime minister and his or her council of ministers have executive

power without constitutionally sharing this power with a directly elected president.

Therefore broadly accepted or the most influential definitions are reviewed without

going into detailed discussions.

The definitions are broadly given by looking at how the power shares are designed

under constitutional documents. Yet one needs to acknowledge the behavioural factors

affecting the workings of constitutional organs; especially the ones generated by

popular presidential elections that can influence the workings of the government and

change the way constitutional power share are interpreted. For that reason behavioural

responses are examined together with constitutional norms.

II. The Definitions and Theoretical Ground

Different writers give different definitions to parliamentary systems based on

distinctive features of some parliamentary models of greatly diverging parliamentary

systems. In this paper I will use a minimal definition that can explain the main

constitutional features of all parliamentary systems:

a) Head government is different from the head of state,

b) Head of government and his cabinet are accountable to the parliament, and can

be removed from the office by the majority of the parliament,

c) Head of state does not enjoy real executive powers or share them with the

cabinet.

Meanwhile a semi-presidential system is the form of government having three

distinctive features:

‘(1) The president of the republic is elected by universal suffrage, (2) he possesses

quite considerable powers; (3) he has opposite to him, however, a council of ministers

and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office

only if the parliament does not show its opposition to them’ 1.

According to this definition, what distinguishes a semi-presidential system from a

parliamentary one is that the first system has a popularly elected president with quite

considerable powers. Under these descriptions it is theoretically possible to have a

parliamentary system with a popularly elected president who does not possess real

executive powers under a parliamentary constitution.

1 M. Duverger, ‘A New Political System Model: Semi-presidential Government’, European Journal of Political

Research, vol. 8. (1980) p. 166.

If a parliamentary republic changes the method of election for presidential office, this

country does not become semi-presidential automatically under Duverger’s

understanding. One needs to examine the presidential powers to decide if this country

remains parliamentary or becomes semi-presidential constitutionally. Impacts of

popular presidential elections (if there is any) on the workings of the government cannot

be examined without looking at presidential powers. One needs to search for important

or ‘quite considerable powers’ and ways to measure them in order to contemplate

whether it is possible for a popularly elected president to become a more active political

participant in comparison with a president selected by the parliament but has quite

similar constitutional powers. In other words one needs to know which powers enable

an elected president to shift the axis of power from the council of ministers and his

cabinet supported by the parliamentary majority towards the presidency.

This approach has two main problems to overcome. One is to produce a consistent

and objective list of powers as ‘quite considerable powers’ to look for in semi-

presidential countries2. And the other is to explain why constitutional powers do not

correspond to the political practice. Certain countries with constitutionally powerful

presidents like Iceland and Austria work as perfect parliamentary systems with weak

presidents whereas countries with less powerful presidents like Romania or Bulgaria

have semi-presidential political practices.

In order to solve the first problem different writers offer several lists of powers and

provide two basic methods to evaluate them. The first method is based on a list of

powers, each scoring one point3 whereas the other method opts for giving points to each

power in the list by taking account of other variables such as direct elections and power

sharing4.

The first method is weaker than the second method in respect of measuring

presidential power since constitutions rarely set out the same power combinations.

2 R. Elgie, ‘Semi-presidentialism: Concepts, Consequences and Contesting Explanations’, Political Studies

Review, vol.2 (2004), p. 317. 3 J. McGregor, ‘The presidency in East Central Europe’, RFE/RL Research Report, vol.3, no.2 (1994), pp. 23-31;

A. Siaroff, ‘Comparative Presidencies: The Inadequacy of the presidential, Semi-presidential and Parliamentary

Distinction’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 42 (2003), pp. 287-312. 4 T. Frye, ‘A politics of institutional choice: Post-communist presidencies’, Comparative Political Studies, vol.

30 (1997), pp. 548; J. Hellman,’Constitutions and Economic Reform in the Postcommunist Transitions’, East

European Constitutional Review, vol. 5 (1996), pp. 52-53.

Presidents exercise their powers under the influence of certain factors and institutional

differences. Such variables have to be counted in measuring powers. Within the second

group of writers, Shugart and Carey deserves a special attention as they provide a test

taking account of as much variables as possible.

Shugart and Carey successfully achieve defining political systems based on the

constitutional powers of presidents and measure them by taking account of factors more

than just direct election and power sharing5. The writers name two basic groups of

presidential powers which are determinative of the regime classification: legislative and

non-legislative powers. The first group of powers consists of constitutional powers of

package veto, partial veto, decree, exclusive introduction of legislation, proposal of

referenda and budgetary powers. The second group entails four constitutional positions

regarding cabinet disposal, cabinet formation, censure and assembly dissolution which

bestow influence on the president against the cabinet. Each of these powers is assessed

by giving points from zero to four depending on the independent usage and the actual

discretion that the president retains while using them.

According to the Shugart and Carey’s test, a parliamentary system scores zero in

both parts showing that the president has only a symbolic role, whereas semi-

presidential systems score higher points ranging from one to four in legislative powers’

scale, and from two to nine in non-legislative powers’ scale6.

In addition to this test, Shugart introduces a further assessment for semi-presidential

governments that one can also use to separate parliamentary systems with presidents

from semi-presidential ones. He asks seven questions, a ‘yes’ for each question means

greater authority for the president7 and a step away from parliamentary form of

government. These questions are whether the president has discretion to dismiss a

council of ministers and cabinet; whether the assembly is restricted in voting no

confidence for a cabinet; whether the president has initiative to name the council of

ministers; whether the cabinet forms without investiture; whether there are any

restrictions on vote of no confidence; whether the president has discretion to dissolve

assembly; whether there may be a dissolution after an assembly (in)action; whether the

5 M.S. Shugart, J.M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, (USA:

Cambridge University Press 1992), p.160. 6 Ibid, p. 156. 7 M.S. Shugart, ‘Semi-presidential Systems: Dual Executive and Mixed Authority Patterns’, French Politics, vol.

3 (2005), pp. 323-351.

president has a right to veto requiring a qualified majority to override. According to the

writer, presidents do not posses those powers under parliamentary system. For instance;

Bulgaria was qualifies as a premiere presidential system by Shugart because the

president has a veto power requiring an absolute majority at the parliament despite not

having any other power on this list8.

Further help comes from Metcalf to differentiate parliamentary systems with

presidents from the semi-presidential systems. She elaborates the Shugart and Carey’s

two dimensional list allowing lower levels of presidential powers to be examined9.

Metcalf includes additional powers and levels of scoring in her list to determine the

boundaries of semi-presidential systems clearer. She also makes a significant

observation based on her evaluation. Where the president has no legislative powers

according to her list, even if he has certain non legislative powers, the system’s

classification as semi-presidential becomes controversial as it does in Austria and

Slovenia. Metcalf argues that those systems are ‘better classified as parliamentary

regimes’10.

As for the second problem of constitutional presidential powers’ being sometimes

inadequate to explain political practices, one needs acknowledge that constitutions are

not the sole source of power. They might be legally, but politically the constitutions are

interpreted and put into practice by political actors whose power comes from electors’

approval in democratic countries. That is how the behavioural aspects come into play.

Popular presidential elections create dual source of democratic legitimacy which is

the exclusive justifying source of all powers in democracies and potentially alter one of

the main features of the parliamentary system. In other words changing the method of

elections could mean more than just revising the way by which the president is elected

as Lijphart warns, a ‘Popular election provides democratic legitimacy and, especially in

combination with more than minimal powers specified in the constitution, can tempt

presidents to become active political participants— potentially transforming the

parliamentary system into a semi-presidential one 11’. One way or another there are

certain behavioural aspects comes into play inevitably affecting the workings of the

parliamentary government. 8 Ibid, pp. 336-337, 339. 9 L.K. Mefcalf, ‘Measuring presidential Power’, Comparative Political Studies, vol. 33, no.5 (2000) pp. 660-685. 10 Ibid., p. 678. 11 A. Lijphart, ‘Constitutional Design for Divided Societies’, Journal of Democracy, vol.15, no.2 (2004) p. 104.

According to Duverger there are three behavioural variables in addition to the

constitutional rules which influence the workings of a semi-presidential government and

powers of the president: the nature of the parliamentary majority, the president’s

position towards the majority in the parliament, events (traditions and circumstances)

surrounding the formation of the regime12. Other writers also named additional

variables to the Duverger’s group of elements such as party systems, elections systems,

and the presidential and parliamentary candidate selection processes13. In short

presidential powers vary depending on all these variables indicating that power relations

in semi-presidential governments may present different pictures at different times under

the influence of those elements.

These behavioural variables are the reason why the political practice of a regime may

differ from what is written in the constitution. Nature of the parliamentary majority and

the president’s position towards this majority are the two behavioural aspects working

together affecting the political system. When a country lacks a clear parliamentary

majority, the actual power of the presidency corresponds greatly to the constitution,

whereas when there is parliamentary majority the president is either in weaker or

stronger position than the constitutional design intends. If the president is the political

leader of the majority, then the government and the president share the same political

agenda. If the council of ministers is the political leader, this reduces the president’s

power to a symbolic status. If he is the leader of opposition, he is in a regulatory

position and his powers are in line with the constitutional outline14.

The third variable as said by Duverger is the traditions and events surrounding the

formation of the regime. Elgie observes three common types of context in which

popular elections for Presidents are set up in semi-presidential and parliamentary

systems15. Opting for popular presidential election might be due to symbolic reasons

such as declaration of national independence and self-determination like in Ireland and

12 Duverger, (note 1), p. 177. 13 For a summary of those views See R. Elgie, ‘The Politics of Semi-presidentialism’, in R. Elgie(ed.), Semi-

presidentialism in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 15; J. Linz, ‘presidential or Parliamentary

Democracy: Does It Make a Difference?’ in J. Linz, A. Valenzuela (ed.), The Failure of presidential

Democracy: Comparative Perspectives, Vol.1, (Baltimore: the John Hopkins University Press, 1994) pp.49-51. 14 Duverger, (note 1), pp. 182-184. 15 Elgie (note 13), p. 17-18.

Iceland, and partly in Finland16. In such cases countries generally remain having

parliamentary practices and symbolic presidencies despite popular presidential

elections. It has to be also added that this kind of favourable background helps

countries’ political actors to reach a consensus on that presidents should remain weak

and symbolic. In Ireland and Iceland political parties have shared a conviction for

neutralized presidential power and weak symbolic presidency against favourable

historical backgrounds17.

The second group involves cases of transitions to democracy and market economy in

which Presidents are leading figures as occurred in many post communist countries.

Without having strong political party organisations and political factors that make

parliamentary systems work efficiently, these countries need elected leaders who

symbolises stable state power. This group of cases generally represent polities having

necessary circumstances for strong Presidents.

The third group includes countries with constitutional preferences made following

the collapse of the parliamentary system due to divided, polarized political majorities,

mistrust of political parties, eventually leading to the creation of arbitrating and strong

presidential force above the polarized parties, like France18.

Finally political party structure has to be viewed as a variable affecting the

presidential powers. Where political parties are weak and fragmented, political

procedures are not well established and voters’ preferences are unstable, popularly

elected Presidents may emerge as strong political leaders and influence the whole

system19.

I will use these theoretical explanations in the search for possible answers to my

main question, starting with measuring the Turkish President’s constitutional powers.

16 Linz (note 13), p.50. 17 R. Martinez, Semi-presidentialism: A Comparative Study, ECPR Joint Sessions, Workshop no.13, (Manheim:

26-31 March 1999), p. 21. 18 Linz (note 10), p.50; J. Blondel, ‘Dual Leadership in the Contemparary World’, in A. Lijphart (ed.),

Parliamentary versus presidential Government (New York: Oxford University Pres, 1992), pp.170-171. 19 For examples of such cases in Central and Eastern Europe See T. Sedelius, The Tug-of-War between

Presidents and Prime Ministers; semi-presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe (Örebro: Örebro Studies in

Political Science 15, 2006).

III. Measuring the Powers of the Turkish President

The Metcalf’s revised version of the Shugart and Carey test will be used together

with the Shugart’s additional evaluation to measure the Turkish President’s

constitutional powers under the 1982 Constitution, and to see if the Turkish President

has indeed ‘quite considerable powers’ fitting the definitions given to semi-

presidentialism since this test measures lower level of power by improving previous

methods.

According to the Shugart’s table of questions (Table 1) measuring greater power for

Presidents20, the Turkish President scores two yeses out of seven questions, which are

‘presidential initiative to name PM’ and ‘dissolution after assembly (in) action’. This

score is more than what Bulgaria gets and precisely the same result with Romania and

Slovakia attain. Turkey’s score is not considerable lower that France’s score. These

countries are semi-presidential (premier-presidential) according to Shugart.

As for the Metcalf’s improved version of the Shugart and Carey test, it provides us

eleven powers, each measured depending on constitutional variations21: seven

legislative (Table 2) and four non-legislative powers (Table 3). When the test is applied

to the constitutional powers of the Turkish President, the President gets five points for

his legislative powers and three points for the non-legislative powers:

20 Shugart (note 7), p. 336. 21 Metcalf (note 9), pp. 669-670.

Table 1

Constitutional Inter Branch Relations in Selected Countries

pres

iden

tial

veto

(ove

rride

)

N

N

N

Y(5

0%+1

)

N

Dis

solu

tion

afte

r

asse

mbl

y

(in)a

ctio

n

Y

Y

Y

N

_

pres

iden

tial

disc

retio

n to

diss

olve

asse

mbl

y

N

N

N

N

Y (1

per

year

)

Res

trict

ions

on v

ote

of n

o

conf

iden

ce

N

N

N

N

N

Doe

s

cabi

net

form

with

out

inve

stitu

re

N

N

N

_ Y

pres

iden

tial

disc

retio

n to

Dis

mis

s PM

N

N

N

N

N

pres

iden

tial

initi

ativ

e to

nam

e PM

Y

Y

Y

N

Y

Cou

ntry

Rom

ania

Slov

akia

Turk

ey

Bul

garia

Fran

ce

Source: Shugart (2005), p. 336 and author.

Table 2

Formal Legislative Powers of Turkish President Package

Veto/

Override

Partial

Veto/

Override

Decree

Exclusive

Introduction

of

Legislation

(reserved

policy areas)

Budgetary

Powers

Proposal

of

Referen

da

Judicial

Review

1

Overri

de by

simple

majorit

y of

quoru

m

1

Overri

de by

simple

majorit

y of

quoru

m

1

Auth

ority

to

enact

decr

ees

limit

ed

0

No

exclusi

ve

powers

0

No Budgetary powers

0

No formal

ways of

referenda

for

ordinary

legislations

exists in Tu

0

no prior

judicial

review

Table 3

Formal Non-Legislative Powers of Turkish President Cabinet Formation

Cabinet Dismissal

Censure

Dissolution of

Assembly

1

President nominates Council

of Ministers, who needs

confidence of assembly;

prime

minister appoints other

ministers, possibly with

consent of President

1

President dismisses

ministers on the proposal

of the Council of Ministers

0

Unrestricted

censure

1

Restricted: only as

response to specific

events

Source: Metcalf ( 2000) and author.

Tot

al

6 5 9 4 9 5 11

Dis

solu

tion

of

Ass

em

bly

1 1 3 1 1 4 4

Cen

su

re

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cab

inet

Dis

mis

sal

1 1 1 0 1 0 0

Cab

inet

Form

atio

n

1 1 1 0 1 1 4

Judi

cial

Rev

iew

0 0 1 1 1 0 0

Prop

osal

of

Ref

eren

da

0 0 1 0 4 0 2

Bud

geta

ry

pow

ers

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Exc

lusi

ve

Intr

oduc

tion

of L

egis

latio

n

(res

erve

d

polic

y ar

eas)

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Dec

ree

1 0 1 0 0 0 1

Part

ial

veto

/

Ove

rrid

e

1 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pack

age

Vet

o/

Ove

rrid

e

1 2 1 2 1 0 0

Cou

ntry

Tur

key

Slov

akia

Fran

ce

Bul

gari

a

Rom

ania

Aus

tria

Icel

and

Tabl

e 4

Con

stitu

tiona

l Pre

side

ntia

l Pow

ers

in se

lect

ed C

ount

ries

These tests show that the Turkish President has indeed ‘quite considerable powers’

that a popularly elected President in a semi-presidential (premiere presidential) system

could possess. On the other hand it has already been explained that the actual powers of

popularly elected Presidents may present different pictures than the constitutional

designs. That is to say that popularly elected Presidents may emerge stronger or weaker

than their constitutional powers depending on behavioural variables in the system.

IV. Popular presidential Elections and Its Possible Impacts in Turkey

The 2007 amendments amend articles 101 and 102 of the 1982 Constitution and set

out new rules for nominations of presidential candidates, the term of office and replace

the system of assembly selection with popular presidential elections. Articles regarding

the President’s powers were left untouched.

The term of office has been reduced from seven to five years-still a year longer than

the parliamentary term- and Presidents have been allowed to run only once for a second

time for the office. Qualifications that a candidate has to have for presidency remain

unchanged under article 101. The candidates must be eligible to be members of TGNA

over 40 years of age, and have university degrees.

According to the new system, nomination of a candidate for the presidency requires

the written support of at least 20 members of TGNA or the support of political parties

that do not have elected deputies due to the national election threshold but together have

votes passing the 10 percent threshold. In other words parties outside the TGNA can

nominate jointly if their total votes are more than 10 percent of votes cast nationwide.

Before the changes, all deputies (members of TGNA) could enter the elections if they

wanted to or one fifth of them could nominate a name outside the TGNA.

Popular presidential elections will be held for the first time after President Abdullah

Gül completes his term of office in 2014. And when the time comes for this first

election, Turkey will step into a new area. The big question for Turkey is whether

parliamentary structure will remain intact despite fact that the Turkish president

has powers more than symbolic. Yet again the Icelandic and Austrian Presidents

have important powers and despite this fact these countries’ governmental systems

work as parliamentary.

In this new model the President is elected by a two round system similar to the

French run-off voting system. If a candidate gets an absolute majority in the first round,

he or she gets elected. If not, the top highest scoring candidates arrive at a run-off.

Whoever gets the highest score wins the election. If one of the candidates arriving at the

run-off dies or loses the qualifications that he needs to have in order to run for the

presidency under article 101, according to the results of the first round next highest

scoring candidate arrives at the second round. If there is only one candidate left arriving

at the second round the election turns into a referendum.

There are two important aspects of this new election procedure. The first feature is

the requirement of political parties’ support for nomination of a presidential candidate.

The new nomination rules aim to engineer an important aspect of consolidated

democracies that Skach observes; a President ‘supported by political parties and

supportive of political parties’22. This statement is based on an observation that

popularly elected Presidents are more likely to be at odds with the parliamentary

majority where they are independent, non-party personalities23. Under article 101

presidential candidates need to have a certain degree of support from political parties to

begin with. On the other hand, it has to be noted that the 1982 Constitution still compels

the President to be an impartial non-party member under new article 101. Presidents are

not allowed to be members of political parties after taking office. It remains

controversial how it is going to be possible for a president nominated and supported by

a political party to stay impartial.

The second important aspect is the run-off system which means that a President gets

the support of an absolute majority of voters, (at least fifty percent or more in the first

round) that the ruling parties usually do not have24. In a democratic system such degree

of electoral mandate could generate greater influence for Presidents or encourage them

to take a stand against parliamentary majorities and governments. The majority run-off

system is not only a widespread choice amongst semi-presidential countries, but also it

is a factor strengthening Presidents25.

22 C. Skach, ‘The Newest Separation of Powers: Semipresidentialism’, International Journal of Constitutional

Law, vol. 5, no.1 (2007), p.107. 23 Ibid., p. 107. 24 No political party has enjoyed the electoral support of more than forty-seven percent of voters since 1983.

Thirty- thirty five percent of the casted votes would generally be enough to produce a single party government

under the current election system with ten percent national threshold. 25 Martinez, (note 17), pp.27-28,30.

When such recent electoral mandate adds up to an ill defined constitutional power

sharing it is especially problematic. In other words where a constitution is not textually

clear on executive power sharing, it is likely that the President would or could resort to

his ill-defined powers to gain greater control of the executive26. The 1982 Constitution

enjoys certain deficits in defining limits to the presidential powers, especially the

powers related to the executive branch.

The 1982 Constitution lists the President’s powers related to the executive branch

under article 104 subsection b and states that the President has powers to enact

executive decrees by himself without the signature of the Council of Ministers and the

concerned minister under article 105; but it fails to specify which of the President’s

executive related powers should be exercised alone and discretionally. In other words

the 1982 Constitution creates confusion concerning which executive related powers

could be exercised discretionally.

To add more to the confusion, some of the executive and administrative powers that

have been given to the President are related to high ranked appointments to autonomous

institutions such as the Turkish Radio Television, the Higher Education Council,

Universities, the Atatürk High Institution of Culture, Language and History, and The

Board of Conservation of Cultural and Natural Wealth. The autonomous nature of these

institutions supports the view that a politically unbiased President should exercise these

powers alone without the interference of the political forces, namely the government.

Legal scholars generally agree however, that the powers in ceremonial nature should

be exercised by the President alone, but the powers of executive character mean

decision-making and create political responsibility, and therefore they should be

exercised in accordance with the directives of the Council of Ministers who are

politically responsible for these practices under article 105 of the 1982 Constitution27.

The logic of the Parliamentary system where there is a single source of legitimacy

dictates this solution. However this is no longer the case in Turkey. After the first

popularly elected President takes his or her office this view might change drastically

taking account of the dual source of democratic legitimacy.

26 M.S. Shugart, J.M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, (USA:

Cambridge University Press 1992), pp. 56-58. 27 See B. Tanör and N.Yüzbaşıoğlu, 1982 Anayasasına Göre Türk Anayasa Hukuku [Turkish Constitutional Law

under the 1982 Constitution] (İstanbul: Beta Yayınları 2006), pp. 310-311; E. Özbudun, Türk Anayasa Hukuku

[Turkish Constitutional Law], (Ankara: Yetkin Yayınları 2004), p. 312.

Even when there was a single source of legitimacy in the system, the incumbent

Presidents have used certain executive powers without consulting the governments, and

sometimes against their openly stated preferences. For instance; they appoint university

rectors28 and some members of the Higher Education Council without consulting with

the Government. This gives universities and the Higher Education Council a certain

independence from the government but opens a channel of influence for the President.

The other important and controversial power of the President regarding the executive

branch is to sign executive decrees of the Council of Ministers including appointment

decrees. Starting with the 8th President Turgut Özal, all the subsequent Presidents have

held up appointments and interfered with the Governments’ choices using this power to

influence, or impede the ability of the government to appoint high ranking

bureaucrats29. For instance; in 1992 President Özal held up decrees regarding the

dismissals of some senior bureaucrats who were close to him. This blockage led the

Prime Minister Demirel to introduce legislation to exclude the President from the legal

appointment and dismissal procedure of certain senior bureaucrats. The President

brought an annulment action against this legislation before the Constitutional Court. In

this particular incident the Constitutional Court had the chance to interpret relevant

articles of the 1982 Constitution regulating his powers and concluded that all executive

decrees had to be signed by the Council of Ministers, all ministers or the ministers

concerned and the President under article 8 of the 1982 Constitution30. Since the

President is the head of the executive branch his signature is needed to complete the

legal procedure regarding all executive decrees. The Constitutional Court based this

interpretation on the major principles of the parliamentary system and added that

requiring the President’s signature did not necessarily give the President an independent

discretion. In other words, unless a decree was violating the Constitution or an act of 28 According to the Higher Education Act, university lecturers vote for rector candidates first, then the Higher

Education council makes a short list for three candidates taking account of the election results and then the

President appoints one of the three alone. 29 In his term of office President Sezer refused to sign 769 appointment decrees prepared by the Government

including the ones for the general secretary of the National Security Council, the head of the Central Bank

and the TRT. News is available on <www.cafesiyaset.com/haber/20070825/Sezer-kac-kararnameyi-

reddetti.php>. Visited in December 2007.

See Also D. Shankland, ‘Islam and Politics in Turkey: 2007 presidential Elections and Beyond’, International

Affairs, vol. 83, no.1 (2007), p. 358. 30 See The Constitutional Court Judgment, E. 1992/37, K. 1993/18, KT 27.04.1993.

parliament, the President had to go along with the cabinet and sign decrees presented to

him. His role in a parliamentary democracy could not be anything but warning or

advising the government.

On the other hand according to this judgment if a decree is clearly breaching the law

then the President has an obligation to prevent it by not signing it. Here his duty is to

protect the supremacy of law. The Constitutional Court’s reasoning in the above

mentioned judgment made it clear that the President could not substitute judiciary in

these situations. The President’s duty is to uphold court judgments. Therefore it should

be the judicial organs, not the President, who decides over unconstitutionality or

irregularity of legal instruments. The President’s role here is simply to obstruct a decree

only if it is violating a court judgment31.

It has to be noted here that the whole reasoning in the aforementioned Constitutional

Court judgment was based on the fact that the political system had a single source of

democratic legitimacy and it gave a priority to the majority in the TGNA. Yet again the

direct democratic legitimacy gained by the popular elections is an important source of

power32 and the dual legitimacy has a potential to change the main rules of the system,

and accordingly the established reasoning of the Constitutional Court.

Given that constitutional powers bestow enough authority upon the President to

impede the parliamentary majority and obstruct governmental policy choices, the

Turkish Presidents’ relationship with the parliamentary majority becomes important as

Duverger’s findings present. Presidential powers can be used to support or obstruct the

parliamentary majority or even to control the very same majority. Political parties shape

this relationship greatly. If party leaders take presidential offices coinciding with

friendly majorities, political ties would further strengthen his political power. Whereas

the real leader remains as a Council of Ministers, the power will be concentrated in the

President’s hands33.

Furthermore article 104 of the constitution also states that additional presidential

powers can be enacted under a parliamentary act without needing a constitutional

31 N. Yüzbaşıoğlu, ‘19 Şubat Krizi –Cumhurbaşkanının Hukuki Statüsü ve Yetkileri Üzerine Bir

Değerlendirme’, Milletlerarası Hukuk ve Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk Bülteni ,vol. 19-20, no.1-2 (1999-

2000)p.1054. 32 O. A. Neto and K. Strom ‘Breaking the Parliamentary Chain of Delegation: Presidents and Non-partisan

Cabinet Members in European Democracies’, British Journal of Political Science, vol.36. (2006) , p. 620. 33 Duverger (note 1), p.184.

amendment. This means that a friendly parliamentary majority can easily choose to

bestow additional powers on the President without requiring counter signature of the

ministers.

If primary political leaders decide to run for presidential office like Özal and

Demirel did in the past, they may establish a root for a strong presidency, and when

these Presidents have supportive majorities whom they can control in the TGNA34, then

they may have de facto political powers added to their constitutional powers.

One way to engineer such control might be simultaneous elections. However such

synchronized elections would hardly occur in Turkey. Parliamentary elections are

repeated every four years whereas presidential elections recur in every five years.

On the other hand, different behavioural patterns might occur if the majority is

politically different from the President, or neutral. The President may be forced to

accommodate the government. If he is in a political position to control opposition, he

would presumably exercise certain checks and balances over the majority. Such

behavioural responses have already been observed even for the Presidents selected by

the TGNA, confirming that the Turkish President has relevant tools under the 1982

Constitution to impede governmental policy choices when he does not approve them.

For instance, in line with his constitutional role the 10th President Sezer returned 67

legislation to the TGNA, refused to sign 749 executive appointment decrees, 12

executive decrees, and 7 decrees having the force of law35, stirring quite a lot of protests

from the government. When such impeding actions are taken by an elected President,

once again, the Turkish constitutional system would need clearly defined intra-

executive power sharing to survive it, and other constitutional methods to avoid

governmental crisis in such situations.

Furthermore the President’s position can be especially problematic when there is no

clear and stable majority in the parliament36. Then diarchy takes place. This can be

another situation prone to crisis since the authority is even more fragmented.

There are also other factors affecting the workings of a dual authority structure, one

of which is the historical and politico-cultural context. As it has been already pointed

34 Presidents cannot be the official leader of any political party under article 101 of the Constitution, but when

former party leaders take presidential office it is quite possible that they remain unofficial, de facto leader of

their former party. 35 See total numbers in İsmet Demirören, ‘Sezerli Yıllar’, Radikal, 28 April 2007. 36 Skach (note 22), p. 103.

out earlier, the context in which popular presidential elections set can be an indicator for

future political practice. Especially when popular presidential elections are the

manifestation of national independence, direct democratic legitimacy is the way to

declare the nation’s will to remove usually a foreign monarch, not to create a powerful

president as was happened in Iceland and Ireland. Having well established

parliamentary practice is also very helpful to carry on parliamentary practice despite an

elected president.

On the other hand having been failed to have a working parliamentary system as has

happened in the fourth French Republic, a directly elected presidency usually is

designed to restore the state power backed by the democratic will of the people37. In

these cases presidents are empowered by the fact the parliamentary majority and the

council of ministers backed by this majority fail to govern efficiently, especially at

times of crisis. Even though popular presidential elections were not the original choice

of the constitution maker under the 1958 Constitution in France the president was

entrusted with important crisis resolving powers and expected to act as the protector of

state power. In this picture popular presidential elections only provided the necessary

democratic legitimacy to these powers and completed the original design of the 1958

Constitution.

In Turkey circumstances and the institutional logic of the 1982 Turkish Constitution

are rather different from France. The presidency was designed to exercise impartial

checks over the parliamentary majority and balance the power of the Prime Minister. In

this design the political leader of the country or chief of government was not the

president but the prime minister, yet the president was not only expected to play

symbolic roles. Under the institutional logic of the 1982 Constitution the president is the

impartial guardian of the constitution and balancing power against the political

majority. This design has been working fairly well as the parliamentary mechanism has

been operating without major crisis.

Then again Turkey has never been short of public discussions and proposals for

presidential or semi-presidential systems38. Stronger presidents with direct democratic

37 V. Constantinesco and S Pierré-Caps, “France: the Quest for Political Responsibility of the President in the

Fifth Republic”, European Constitutional Law Review, vol. 2, 2006, p. 341.

38 For different proposals and arguments see. B.E.Oder, ‘Türkiye’de Başkanlık ve Yarı Başkanlık Rejimi

Tartışmaları: 1991-2005 Yılları Arasında Basına Yansıyan Öneri ve Tepkilerden Kesitler’ [Debates about Semi-

legitimacy have been supported especially by right wing parties. Surprisingly opting for

popular presidential elections was not the result of any such efforts. The method of

popular elections was adopted as a result of difficulty and political tension surrounding

the presidential election in 2007. The TGNA failed to elect the 11th President in the first

attempt in May 2007. Subsequently an early parliamentary election was called as

required by former article 102 of the 1982 Constitution and later Abdullah Gül was

elected as the 11th President of the Republic by the new parliament in August 2007, two

months before the Turkish public endorsed the idea of a popularly elected President.

The question of presidential powers was not raised during the campaign for direct

presidential elections. This method was presented as being a more democratic

alternative to assembly selection by the supporters since the assembly selection of

Presidents has never been peaceful or easy for Turkey. There has always been

controversy surrounding presidential elections, more so, if there was a single majority in

the TGNA wanting to elect the President without seeking consensus with other political

parties as was the case in 2007. Popular elections would take the burden off the TGNA

and leave it to the public to decide. That atmosphere does not entail any change other

than the method for presidential election. In spite of that it is fair to assume that the real

political events shaping power relations of constitutional actors will take place during

and after the first popular election.

In addition to that, the constitutional amendments were not designed by taking

account of the fact that popular presidential election can politically empower the

president de facto in addition to the corrective role given under the 1982 Constitution. If

the intention was just to change the method of election, powers of the president and the

vague wordings of the Constitution should have been revised as it was done in Slovakia.

Slovakia’s 1992 Constitution set forth a very similar selection method for presidents

to the 1982 Turkish Constitution. Both Constitutions required super-majorities, limited

rounds and constitutional incentives to elect presidents in the Parliament. Successful

presidential elections required political consensus on a candidate in the parliament to

avoid deadlock and constitutional crisis. After having encountered several crises

presidential and presidential Systems in Turkey: Brief Review of Proposals and Reactions in the Press between

1991-2005], in T. Ergül (ed.), Başkanlık Sistemi [presidential System], (Ankara: TBB Yayınları, 2005) p. 31-71;

L. Gönenç, ‘Türkiye’de Hükümet Sistemi Değişikliği Tartışmaları: Olanaklar ve Olasılıklar Üzerine Bir Çalışma

Notu’ [Debates on Changing the Governmental System in Turkey: A Study Note on Posibilities and

Probabilities], in T. Ergül (ed.), Başkanlık Sistemi [presidential System], (Ankara: TBB Yayınları, 2005) p. 1-13.

Slovakia finally opted for direct presidential election with great public support in 1999

but also modified presidential powers. The 1999 amendments curtailed vague wordings

of the Constitution and the controversial powers of the president causing rifts between

the president and the government. Accordingly the president’s ability to interfere with

everyday workings of the government and the parliament was reduced greatly39.

Unfortunately Turkish Grand Assembly failed to recognise future problems which could

be caused by this change.

Finally political party structure has to be viewed as a variable affecting the

presidential powers. Where political parties are weak and fragmented, political

procedures are not well established and voters’ preferences are unstable, popularly

elected Presidents may emerge as strong political leaders and influence the whole

system40. It cannot be argued that these factors are not valid for Turkey, even though, to

a lesser extent41.

V. CONCLUSION

In conclusion the article determines that the Turkish President has indeed powers

more than minimal; the popularly elected Turkish Presidents will have constitutional

powers fitting the semi-presidential (premier- presidential) model.

When these constitutional powers come together with direct democratic legitimacy, a

stronger presidency may emerge and the workings of the Turkish parliamentary system

would be altered eventually. However this process would consist of shortfalls

potentially leading to the collapse of the regime. Namely, the creation of dual

legitimacy without clarifying limits to the presidential powers and discretion makes the

39 D. Malova , M. Rybar, “Slovakia’s Presidency: Consolidating Democracy By Curbing Ambiguous Powers”,

Semi-presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe, (eds.) R. Elgie, S. Moestrup, Manchester University Press,

2009.

40 For examples of such cases in Central and Eastern Europe See Sedelius, (note 19).

41 See İ. Turan, ‘Stages of Political Development in the Turkish Republic’, in E. Özbudun (ed.), Perspectives on

Democracy in Turkey, (Ankara: Turkish Political Science Association, 1988), pp.87-88; Ü.Ergüder, ‘Post-1980

Parties and Politics in Turkey’, in E. Özbudun (ed.), Perspectives on Democracy in Turkey (Ankara:Turkish

Political Science Association, 1988) pp.117-125.; S.Sayarı, ‘Towards a New Turkish Party System?’, Turkish

Studies, vol. 8, no.2 (2007), pp.197-210.

system susceptible to diverging and potentially crisis prone behavioural patterns

regarding power relations since dual legitimacy would give the President extra strength

to interpret his constitutional powers and a more effective role against a unfriendly

parliamentary majority.

Specifically, there are three major challenges that the Turkish political system has to

face under the new model. One is the limits to the President’s executive powers,

especially regarding the executive decrees as the 1982 Constitution lacks any

clarification or solution for cases in which the President blocks the making of executive

decrees by not signing them. Before the adoption of the popular legitimacy, the

Constitutional Court had clarified and limited the presidential power by referring to the

fact that there was a single democratic legitimacy in the political system and it required

the President to refrain from blocking the policy choices of the government. Despite this

judgement there have been incidents when the Presidents blocked appointment decrees

and decrees having the force of law. After being elected by the public vote the President

certainly will have the necessary authority to push for his choices or impede the

government’s policies. As Lijphart puts it, ‘the feeling of superior democratic

legitimacy may make the President righteously unwilling and psychologically unable to

compromise’ 42. When such unwillingness comes together with the vaguely defined

presidential powers and ideological differences between the President and the prime-

minister, intra-executive conflicts may occur easily indicating a competition over the

control of executive policy preferences.

The second challenge that the Turkish political system might face is giving the

President considerable democratic legitimacy and making the office more attractive for

political leaders who are prone to use extra de jure and de facto powers and become

stronger Presidents regardless of the majority in the TGNA. Only when they are backed

by the parliamentary majority they grow stronger. It is fair to assume that Duverger’s

explanations regarding the relationship between the parliamentary majority and the

President are valid in the Turkish context. In other words, when the political party

holding the majority in the TGNA sends its leader to the presidential office the leader

becomes a stronger President43 as already happened with President Özal. Therefore if 42 A. Lijphart, ‘Presidentialism and Majoritarian Democracy: Theoretical Observations’, J. Linz, A. Valenzuela

(ed.), The Failure of presidential Democracy: Comparative Perspectives, Vol 1, (Baltimore: the John Hopkins

University Press1994), p.103. 43 Duverger (note 1), pp. 184-185

the leader of the majority becomes the first elected President of the Turkish Republic,

this will support an already existing tendency and create a strong presidency retaining

constitutional as well as de facto powers and when he is not backed by the

parliamentary majority he will be forced to political negotiation which is not always

peaceful. This would lead us to third challenge to the system.

This one is more related to the Turkish society’s own particular structure. In a

polarized and divided society such as Turkish society44 where political conflicts are

based on real ideological differences, dual legitimacy might give rise to certain

distinctive outcomes and further polarization in the polity depending on the relationship

between the President and the parliamentary majority. There is a real chance in Turkey

that Presidents and the majorities in the TGNA would reflect the tension in the society.

If the President and the majority in TGNA are from the same political group, the

chance of intra-executive polarization reduces as do the chances of the President being

an impartial arbiter. This would mean concentration of power in the hands of one party.

Such over-concentration of power reduces the effectiveness of checks and balances in

the system and therefore, runs the danger of democratic decline45 as in ethnically or

ideologically divided societies power sharing is essential for democratisation46.

On the other hand if the President and the majority of the TGNA are from different

political groups, political tension and further polarization might occur in the event of an

institutional conflict driven by ideological distinctions47 as well as real checks and

balances performed by the President. This pattern of presidential behaviour has been

already observed in the Turkish polity, popular vote here only strengthens the

President’s hand in such conflicts with the majority in the TGNA and the government.

Consequently it is highly likely that presidential elections and the presidency in

general will remain to be controversial topics in Turkey.

44 On Turkey’s political division regarding the Islam’s role shaping political and social life See Sultan Tepe,

‘Turkey’s AKP: A Model ‘Muslim-Democratic’ Party?’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 16, no.3 (2005), p. 77. 45 R. Elgie and S. Moestrup, ‘The Choice of Semi-presidentialism and Its Consequences’, in Elgie and S.

Moestrup (ed.), Semi-presidentialism Outside Europe A Comparative Study, (London: Routledge 2007), p. 247. 46 Lijphart (note 11), p. 97. 47 S. Moestrup,’Semi-presidentialism in Young Democracies’, in R. Elgie and S. Moestrup (ed.),Semi-

presidentialism Outside Europe A Comparative Study, (London: Routledge 2007), p. 32.