Presidential shift troubling ruling AKP

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım had another meeting on Dec. 26 with Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), with whom he is cooperating on the constitutional draft that proposes axing the parliamentarian system in Turkey and ushering in an executive presidency, as targeted by President Tayyip Erdoğan.

It is not clear whether some articles of the draft will be withdrawn or revised as an outcome. But Yıldırım was reported to have told MPs from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) last week that for any change, he has to again ask the MHP since the AK Parti "needed MHP votes." In order to take the constitutional draft to a referendum, at least 330 votes in the 550-seat parliament are needed. The AK Parti has 317 (minus the parliamentary speaker who cannot vote while chairing the session), and that's why the PM needs the continuous support of the MHP leader.

The meeting itself, when considered together with Yıldırım's words, show that the real problem is not with the MHP but from within the AK Parti, since the PM has been trying to convince Bahçeli on revisions to the draft.

Nobody in the AK Parti wants to go on record about their concerns in order not to provoke a reaction from Erdoğan, but in a meeting behind closed doors, they speak up and the word goes to not only Erdoğan but to the political backstage in Ankara as well.

According to information leaked behind closed doors, there are three categories of concern: structural, systemic and political.

These can be summarized as follows:

1) Structural:

- Deputies do not want the "substitute deputy" system out of fear that it might lead to political assassinations.

- MPs from especially...