How will Akşener's new party affect politics?

Although there are over two years until the next presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019, polls and forecasts about who will run against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are dominating the political agenda in Turkey. 

Erdoğan has already rolled up his sleeves, tidying up the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) headquarters and provincial organizations right after officially returning to the party as chairman after a three-year hiatus. He spent last week in the Black Sea region, where he strongly urged all his party fellows that the 2019 elections will not be easy. 

The president wants a substantial reshuffle in the AKP's provincial and district organizations, as he realizes that the AKP he is chairing now is not the same party he left in 2014. As he made clear in his statements, he will push his entire party organization, youth branches, women's branches and mayors to do more for the upcoming period or to leave their positions to others if they feel tired or exhausted. His plan is to accomplish this regeneration of the AKP by the end of this year. 

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has also been very active since the April referendum, which resulted in a very narrow win for the AKP-led constitutional amendments. Leading the "no" campaign, which garnered 48.6 percent of the vote, the CHP will surely accelerate its efforts to try to win the upcoming twin elections. 

The arrest of CHP Istanbul deputy Enis Berberoğlu pushed CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to launch his historic "justice march" from the capital Ankara to Istanbul. He is now preparing to hold a massive congress in late August to revisit the systematic and institutional justice system problem of Turkey. He will continue to base his rhetoric...