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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.