Turkey: Erdogan ally drafts new constitution for AK Party to consider

A nationalist ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that his party has drafted a new constitution for the country that envisages an overhaul of the judiciary, Anadolu has reported. Devlet Bahceli said that the draft would soon be presented to Erdogan’s ruling AK Party for discussion.

“This constitutional proposal is the democratic torch of the 100 years that lies ahead, a move by our people to build and reclaim the future,” said the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party.

Bahceli suggested changes to the constitution in January in order to ban the Kurdish-led Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). The HDP is alleged to have ties with the outlawed terror organisation the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

President Erdogan has said that he hopes that a new constitutional text can be ready for public debate by 2022, a year before Turkey is due to mark the centenary of the creation of the modern Turkish Republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

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