On the evening of June 7, Turkey's opposition was jubilant. Election results from that day showed the ruling Justice and Peace Party (AKP) had failed to win an outright majority — stunning many observers, who had expected the AKP to maintain essentially unchallenged control over Turkey's government.
The opposition's excitement went beyond normal post-election celebrations, because this was much more than a normal election. Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not on the ballot, this week's parliamentary election was widely perceived as a referendum on Erdogan's plan to change the Turkish constitution in order to grant himself sweeping, unprecedented presidential powers. Because Erdogan's record shows clear tendencies toward authoritarianism, many observers in Turkey and elsewhere believed that his proposed constitutional amendments would not just change the structure of Turkish democracy, but pose an existential threat to it.
But the AKP is far from defeated: although voters denied them an outright majority, the party is still likely to head a coalition that will control the government for some time. So while this election is good news for Turkish parliamentary democracy, the widespread triumphalism about the AKP's "defeat" is still radically premature.
