The controversial referendum, held on 16 April 2017, involved multiple changes to the Turkish institutional set-up. The main changes include the holding of joint elections, the unification of the figure of “Head of State” and “Head of Government”, increasing the number of MPs to 600 from 550 and limitations on the legislative power of the Parliament.

In addition, under the new constitutional framework, the president can maintain an affiliation to his political party and can appoint four out of 13 judges of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors.

The elections, previously scheduled for the 3rd November 2019, have been anticipated and will see the full implementation of the constitutional reform.

Parliamentary election

The 600 members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the country’s unicameral legislative body, will be elected across 87 electoral districts through a party-list proportional representation system.  Seats will be distributed in proportion to the number of votes received by the party and on the basis of a list of candidates. A threshold of 10%, first introduced in 1982, is required for parties wishing to get into Parliament.

There are two main alliances running in the parliamentary election: the People’s Alliance and the Nation’s Alliance.

The former is a joint effort including AKP, Erdoğan’s party, and the Nationalist Movement party (MHP). The two will run together in both elections. A third member, the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR) will support the alliance in the presidential election, but not in the parliamentary one.

The latter includes the liberal conservative İYİ Party, the sunni Felicity Party (SP) and the social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP). The Nation’s Alliance has been criticised by the People’s Alliance as a ‘non-conformists’ aggregation, due to the variety of views and intentions of the forces it represents.

The pan-islamist Free Cause Party (HÜDAPAR), the left-wing nationalistic Patriotic Party (VATAN), and the pro-minorities People’s Democratic Party (HDP) are running independently.

Main parties

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP), founded in 2001 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and members of existing conservatives parties, has its roots in Turkey’s Ottoman past and Islamic identity, although party leaders are quick to refuse the label of “Islamic party”.

The Republican People’s Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi – CHP), founded in 1919 as a resistance organization and in 1923 as political party, is the main opposition party. The six arrows in its logo represent the key principles of Kemalism: republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, laicism and reformism.

The latest opinion polls see AKP in the lead at 39.9%. Opposition party CHP are the current runner up with 25.4% of the vote, while the People’s Democratic Party sits a distant third at at 12.3%. İYİ is napping at the heels of the top three, polling at 11.4%, with the Nationalist Movement at 7.4% and Felicity at 2.6%.

Presidential election

The presidential election see Erdoğan as the only candidate for the People’s Alliance, while the Nation’s Alliance candidates all three of its leaders: Muharrem İnce for CHP, Meral Akşener for İYİ, and Temel Karamollaoğlu for Felicity.

Selahattin Demirtaş is running for HDP and Doğu Perinçek for the Patriotic Party, both outside of alliances.

The presidential election consists of two turns. While the three parties of the Nation’s alliance run as separate for the first round of the presidential election, it is expected that the alliance will support the candidate that will move to the second round.

Main Candidates

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been the President of Turkey since 2014 and has previously covered the role of Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014. Seen as the main favorite for this elections, he founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001 and was elected as Prime Minister two years after that.

Criticized for his authoritarianism and Islamic chauvinism, Erdoğan has changed the historic secular face of Turkey. The situation escalated when in 2016, an unsuccessfully coup d’état tried to remove Erdoğan from his position. The resulting state of emergency has not yet been lifted.

The main opposition candidate is Muharrem İnce, former physics teacher. He’ll be standing for the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP). Differently from his colleagues, İnce was able to gather support beyond his core secular base. Should he make it to the second turn, Ince might actually stand a chance.

The latest opinion polls see Erdoğan in the lead for the first turn with İnce and Akşener respectively as runner ups. The second turn sees Erdoğan emerging with a narrow majority both against İnce (53.7 vs. 46.3) and against Akşener (51.2 vs. 48.8).

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The first victory for the country comes in 1967 with Sandie Shaw and the song Puppet on a String. The latest victory comes in 1997 with the rock band Katrina and the Waves and the song Love Shine a Light.

The United Kingdom is also a member of the “Big Five“, those countries that are automatically allowed to participate in the final as they are the five biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Last year the country was represented by Lucie Jones with the song Never Give Up on You, that reached the eleventh position.

This year the United Kingdom will be represented by Susanna Marie Cork, better known as SuRie, an English singer and songwriter, with the song Storm.

SuRie is a classically trained musician and graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in London.

She’s no stranger to Eurovision, she collaborated as dancer and vocalist for Loïc Nottet, Belgian artist finished fourth in 2015’s Contest; and again she returned with the Belgians in 2017, supporting Blanche and City Lights as Musical Director.

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Despite its short carrer, Ukraine has already won two times. The first victory comes in 2004 with Ruslana and the song Wild Dances, the second one comes in 2016 with Jamala and the song 1944.

This year the country will be represented by Kostyantyn Mykolayovych Bocharov, simply known as Mélovin, a young Ukrainian singer and songwriter.

Mélovin rose to fame in 2015, when he became a participant of the sixth season of The X Factor in Ukraine and eventually went on to win the show.

Mélovin also participated twice in the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. In 2017 he finished third and this year he won with his song Under The Ladder.

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The Netherlands has won four times, the first victory comes in 1957 with Corry Brokken and the song Net als toen. The last one comes in 1975 with the Dutch band Teach-In and the song Ding-a-Dong.

Last year the country was represented by the group O’G3NE that with the song Lights and Shadows achieved the eleventh position.

This year The Netherlands will be represented by Waylon with the song Outlaw in ‘Em.

Willem Bijkerk, known professionally as Waylon, is a Dutch singer.

Waylon came to people’s attention during his Hollands Got Talent performance in 2008. One year later he became the first Dutch artist to sign to the Motown Label. Wicked Way was his first single on his debut album Wicked Ways. Both were extremely successful and won several awards.

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Switzerland has been absent only four times, in 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2003, always due poor results in the previous Contest.

Last year the country was represented by the band Timebelle that with the song Apollo failed to reach the final.

In Lisbon Switzerland will be represented by ZiBBZ, a Swiss duo made of siblings Corinne and Stefan Gfeller.

“Every musician dreams of performing on a stage like this some day. It takes years of work for a moment like this and we plan on enjoying every minute of it”, says indie pop duo ZiBBZ.

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Sweden is also one of the most successful countries, with six victories it is only behind to Ireland that has win seven times.

The first victory for the scandivian country comes in 1974 with the historic band ABBA and the song Waterloo. The last victory comes in 2015 with Måns Zelmerlöw with the song Heroes.

This year the country will be represented by Benjamin Ingrosso a Swedish singer and songwriter, son of a Swedish dancer and composer, with the song Dance You Off.

Benjamin is one of Sweden’s most popular male pop-artists, with over 25 million Spotify streams and reaching 1x Platinum and 3x Gold with his singles.

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The country’s best results are two seventh places, achieved the first time in 1995 with Darja Švajger and the song Prisluhni mi; the second time in 2001 with Nuša Derenda and the song Energy.

Last year, in Kyiv Slovenia failed to reach the final, so this year the hopes of a country are on the shoulder of Lea Sirk, a Slovenian singer and songwriter, with the song Hvala, ne!.

Lea studied at the Conservatory of Music in Geneva and has played in various orchestras and participated in different seminars across Europe.

She participated at numerous national and international competitions, where she regularly finished amongst the top positions.

Her participation at numerous festivals culminated with her impressive win at EMA 2018 where she became the Slovene representative at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with her song Hvala, ne! which she wrote alongside Tomy DeClerque.

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Spain has won two times in its long career, the first time in 1968 with Massiel and the song La, la, la. The second time the following year in 1969 with Salomé with the song Vivo cantando.

Last year the country was represented by Manel Navarro with the song Do It for Your Lover  that achieved the amazing result of the last place with five points.

This year Spain will be represented by the duo Alfred & Amaia with the song Tu canción.

Amaia Romero and Alfred García are the winner and finalist of the latest edition of Spanish TV talent show Operación Triunfo.

Amaia started studying piano at six years old at Pablo Sarasate’s Music Conservatory, and at 10 she was already auditioning for her first talent show.

Alfred has been passionate about music from a young age, he is a talented songwriter who has released three self-edited albums, despite his young age.

Tu Canción is the perfect embodiment of Amaia and Alfred’s real and enchanting love story.

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Serbia won the contest on its debut as an Independent country in 2007, with Marija Šerifović and the song Molitva. The second best result for the country is a third place in 2012 with Željko Joksimović and the song Nije ljubav stvar.

This year the country will be represented by the band Sanja Ilić & Balkanika with the song Nova deca.

Originally the band consisted of nine musicians, 6 instrumentalists, one male, and two female vocals. They were later joined by two trumpeters and one female vocalist.

The musical style of Balkanika is an original sound combined with elements of world music based on the powerful native rhythm of the Balkans.

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San Marino was not really lucky in his carrer in the Contest, in fact it reached the final only one time in 2014 with Valentina Monetta and the song Maybe.

This year the little country, an enclave in Italy, will be represented by Jessika featuring Jenifer Brening with the song Who We Are.

Jessika is a Maltese singer-songwriter and actress. She rose to fame when in 2008 she took part at the Malta Song for Europe Festival.

Jenifer Brening is a young german singer. She started by publishing on youtube cover versions of international hits gaining her recognition around the world.

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