The Turkish Grand National Assembly [official website] approved controversial constitutional reforms, as part of an 18-article bill on Friday, which would allow the president to retain ties with a political party [Reuters report] and issue decrees. The draft amendment of the bill was approved [JURIST report] at the end of last month by the parliament. This move was strongly opposed by the CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP parties and triggered physical altercations between members of the ruling AKP party and CHP in the parliament. President Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile] stated that these reforms are needed to prevent the return to a situation involving weak coalition governments of the past but the opposing parties have expressed concern that these reforms are a road toward authoritarianism. These reforms will still need to get through two additional rounds of voting before they are put to a referendum and the AKP’s deputy leader has warned that elections will have to be held if the measures are not passed. However, CHP’s own deputy leader stated that his party will give full support to early elections rather than have these measures go through. Erdogan stated that he has not ruled out early elections although he does not find it desirable. This bill requires the vote of 330 deputies in the assembly to get through to a referendum. The AKP has 316 deputies eligible to vote and the MHP 39. Five of the 18 articles passed overnight [CNN report] with the support of 340-343 lawmakers.

Since the failed coup in Turkey in July, where Turkish military forces tried to overthrow the Government, the Turkish Government has taken several controversial steps to strengthen its power. In July Amnesty International [advocacy website] condemned [JURIST report] Turkey for attacking the freedom of the press by issuing arrest warrants for 42 journalists. Similarly, Turkey also significantly restricted the activities of NGOs [JURIST report] like human rights organizations and children’s groups and arrested opposition party leaders [JURIST report] alleging they were connected to terror organizations. In October, Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] warned [JURIST report] that the emergency decrees put in place after the failed coup, had resulted in serious human rights violations.