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June 7th, 2015 
David Schulberg Erdogan, who was elected president in August 2014 after over 11 years of serving as prime minister, now feels confident that he can transform Turkey into a presidential republic.
To achieve this, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) hopes to secure a super-majority of parliamentary seats to easily push for constitutional changes to increase the powers of the president, who holds a largely ceremonial role under the current constitution.
The AKP currently holds 327 out of the 550 parliamentary seats. If it can raise the number of the parliament seats to 330, it would be able to authorize a referendum on the constitution. If it gains a super-majority of 367 seats (two-thirds of the parliament), the AKP could simply make the changes it wants without popular vote.
However, opposition parties fear that the constitutional changes would increase what they describe as the president’s authoritarian tendencies.
A serious threat to the AKP’s expansion of its 12-year monopoly over political power in Turkey might be the left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which has run an energetic campaign across the country trying to pass Turkey’s 10-percent threshold for parliament. If it succeeds to get the minimum percentage of the parliament’s seats, it could effectively obstruct the AKP’s plan to change the constitution.
MG
Source Article from http://english.irib.ir/news/world/west-asia/item/210785-parliamentary-elections-kick-off-in-turkey
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