Erdogan says Turkey to hold snap election on November 1

Turkey will hold a snap election on November 1 and an interim government will be formed in the meantime, if necessary with members from outside parliament, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said in televised remarks broadcast by the Turkish media.

The official timing of the elections will be set by the country’s election commission, which is not allowed to set a date until Sunday, when a deadline for creating a coalition after the last elections expires. 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu formally ended attempts to find a junior coalition partner on Tuesday after weeks of talks with opposition parties failed.

Davutoglu, the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), handed the mandate back to Erdogan, making a snap election almost inevitable.

On Wednesday, Erdogan said he would not hand the duty to form a new government to another party. 

The 45-day period to form a new coalition in the country is to officially end on August 23.

The elections should be held 90 days after being called, but the country’s election board can set it earlier than the official schedule in question.

According to the constitution, the AK Party will be able to continue as a minority government until elections if a majority in parliament votes in favour of holding early polls. In that case, the president has the right to order early elections.

Both the secularist centre-left Republican People’s Party and Nationalist Movement Party, the second and third largest parties in parliament, recently announced that they would not take part in government formation.

And the AK Party is not likely to enter a coalition with the pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples’ Democracy Party, the fourth party in parliament, as the government has been bombing Kurdish targets in northern Iraq as well as inside Turkey since last month.