Political Entropy: Locking the System

With the referendum held on April 16, 2017, the amendment of 18 articles of the Constitution was accepted with 51.41% yes, 48.59% no votes. The number of Yes votes was 25 157 025, and the number of No votes was 23 777 091. The constitutional amendment proposals were brought by the ruling party, the AKP. 330 votes were required for a popular vote in the parliament. With the support of the MHP, 339 votes were taken by the public vote for the changes.

In summary, the changes are; It included issues such as the abolition of the current parliamentary system and the establishment of a presidential system of government, abolishing the prime minister and cabinet, and increasing the number of deputies in the parliament from 550 to 600. Of course, the most important issue was the reorganization of the duties and powers of the President with the amendment in Article 104 of the Constitution and the transfer of executive power to the Presidency. In this way, a fundamental system change was envisaged. The targeted principle was stability in management.

In this article, we will examine the relations between the Parliament and the President in the new system, in other words, between the executive and the legislature, and make predictions about the functioning.

Duties and Powers of the President are regulated in Article 104 of the Constitution:

The President is the head of the State. Executive power rests with the President.

He appoints vice-presidents and ministers and dismisses them.

He appoints top-level public administrators, dismisses them, and regulates the procedures and principles regarding their appointment by presidential decree.

The President can issue presidential decrees on matters related to executive power.

The President of the Republic may issue regulations in order to ensure the implementation of the laws, provided that they are not contrary to them.

The biggest criticism brought to the presidential government system is that the executive, that is, the Presidency, is given too much authority to disable the Assembly and violate the principle of separation of powers, which is an indispensable part of democratic systems. What happens if the principle of separation of powers cannot be applied? Montesquieu replied to this by saying, "If there is no separation of powers, it does not exist in the Constitution". In our article, we will analyze the issue of whether the current Presidential government system gathers authority in one place or not, without entering into this discussion.

In our constitution, the legislature is constituted by the Assembly, the executive is composed of the President and ministers, and the judiciary is constituted by independent courts. Let's put the judgment aside for now, as its borders are marked with thick lines. In democratic systems, there must be a balanced relationship between the legislature and the executive.

In the event that the President and the Assembly are represented by different alliances in the first election to be held, how the following provisions of Article 104 of the Constitution will be interpreted is of vital importance for the operation of the system. Article 104 of the Constitution: “The President of the Republic may issue a presidential decree on matters related to executive power. “He said, but later on;

“Presidential decrees cannot be issued on matters that are envisaged to be regulated exclusively by law in the Constitution.

Presidential decrees cannot be issued on matters expressly regulated in the law.

If there are different provisions in the presidential decree and the laws, the provisions of the law are applied.

If the Turkish Grand National Assembly enacts a law on the same subject, the presidential decree becomes null and void.”

an annotation was put.

When we look at the literal interpretation of this article, it is seen that these provisions provide the Parliament with the opportunity to establish almost direct dominance over the executive, beyond control.

We are faced with an interesting situation. At the beginning, we said that the most important criticism brought to the new system was that the executive was given too much power and the Parliament was rendered dysfunctional. Now we are talking about the domination of the Assembly over the executive. However, it was said that the presidential government system would implement the principle of stability in the administration.

The new system actually contains multiple contradictions within itself that will lock the system. The only reason why this contradiction has not emerged so far is that the alliance in which the President is elected and the alliance that has the majority of the Parliament are composed of the same parties. If the President and the Assembly are represented by the same political structure, the system eliminates the separation of powers and makes the executive almost legislator. If different political structures are represented, the Assembly can lock the executive. However, in the parliamentary system, since the political structure, which is the majority in the Assembly, takes the task of forming a government, the executive and the legislator have no alternative but to work in harmony.

In this respect, the presidential government system carries elements that will lead the entire system to double-sided entropy. We said entropy, because contemporary management and organizations are designed with inspiration from systems approaches. The state is also an organization and its organizational structure should be examined within the scope of the systems approach.

keep the system going additional balanced relationship must exist within the system. The tendency of the system called negative entropy to correct itself is also valid for political systems. Mechanisms such as censure and vote of confidence in the parliamentary system can be given as examples of negative entropy. Unfortunately, the principles of the system approach were not taken into account in the design of the presidential government system. The only solution to the disagreements between the President and the majority of the Assembly is for the President to use his authority to dissolve the Assembly. In this case, it is not possible to talk about stability.

In the presidential system of government, the lack of clear boundaries between the executive and the legislature causes a confusion of duties, powers and responsibilities. According to the systems approach, if the balanced relationship we have mentioned between the executive and legislative functions of the state cannot be established, the state's management system is a development to be expected to enter into a tendency to deteriorate, which we call entropy. If the necessary measures are not taken to re-establish the balance of the deteriorated system, the system will gradually lose its balance, confusion and disruptions will increase, activities will lose their meaning and the system will come to a complete stop.

Let's make our determination more concrete. Our proposition is that in a polarized political system, the Assembly may confine the executive power of the President to a narrow area. According to the current provisions in our Constitution, every decree/decision made by the President can be nullified by the Assembly, Article 104 of the Constitution. The article allows this.

In political systems where there is no culture of reconciliation, laws are read biased and the culture of "doing it yourself" is dominant. When this understanding comes into play, the party claiming to be a victim has nothing to do other than complaining to the public about their grievances. There is no need to look for the source of polarization far away. The system has already received its legitimacy from a 51.41% vote rate. The President is also elected with 50+1 votes. It is difficult to say that a social consensus can be achieved with these rates. A compulsory polarization has been made the code of the system from the beginning.

On the other hand, it is being tested in another political structure, in Ankara and Istanbul local governments, whether the said reconciliation can be achieved. In our example, elected municipal Assemblies often make obstructions by using the majority of the Assembly's decisions, turn a blind eye to the grievances of the public, and act with the understanding of "whether it fails or whatever". Municipal budgets are restricted, approvals are not given, and vital and urgent decisions are prevented. Starting from this example, let's assume that the opposition is the majority in the Parliament. The President wants Kanal Istanbul to be built, can an opposition parliament prevent this? Yes, it can be blocked. The only thing he will do is to make the areas where Kanal Istanbul will be built as a natural protection area and to close them for construction with a law he will enact. Similar examples can be multiplied. Up to the appointment of public officials, the Assembly can exercise its authority as a legislator and narrow the functions of the President.

Public opinion polls show that the President and the Parliament are likely to be represented by different political structures in the first election to be held. Turkey is faced with serious problems in economy, security and foreign policy that it has to deal with. Instability in management will exacerbate these problems. My proposal is within the scope of the new Constitution studies; It is an agreement on a parliament-based system that will provide check&balance between the Presidency and the Parliament. There is no point in testing the wrong.