Turkish business community's choice is a coalition after election

?We miss you,? said Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUS?AD) head Cansen Ba?aran-Symes, addressing board member Memduh Boydak as they were about to start TÜS?AD?s Higher Consultative Board meetings in Istanbul on Sept. 17. 

Boydak, the CEO of Boydak Holding, was still under police detention as part of a probe in Kayseri where its headquarters are located. The probe was about possible links between the Boydak group and Melik?ah University, which it supports, with followers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist scholar living in the U.S. Once a close ally of President Tayyip Erdo?an and his Justice and Development Party (AK Parti), Gülen is now regarded as an arch enemy.

Ba?aran-Symes said in her speech that the Turkish business community is fed up with pressure on them, and also mentioned the mounting pressure on the media in the country.

?The first thing we would expect from the government,? she said, ?would be to at least take us to the Nov. 1 election in peace.? 

With the expectations of the business community minimized to the level of simply demanding an election in peace, there is something else that bosses seek after the Nov. 1 vote. 

Generally, Turkish bosses? choice for after the election is a coalition government, despite President Erdo?an?s statements that a single-party government would be the best for economic and political stability. In saying this, he gives the example of the last 13 years under the AK Parti.

Ba?aran-Symes elaborated on why TUS?AD had supported the formation of a coalition government between the AK Parti and the social democratic Republican People?s Party (CHP) after the June 7 election, when the AK Parti lost its parliamentary majority. She said that if a ?strong coalition? could...