AFP, Istanbul :Bruised by one of the worst setbacks of his political career, Turkey’s pugnacious President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is ready to play the card of calling snap polls in a high-stakes gamble that could yet backfire.Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed to win an overall majority in June legislative elections for the first time since coming to power in 2002, forcing it into the messy business of coalition politics.The result was seen as a personal hiding for Erdogan, whose charisma had turned the AKP into one of the world’s most successful election-winning machines and who had dreamt of ruling Turkey under a new presidential system.Talks to form a coalition have since rumbled on, with a grand coalition between the AKP and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) looking like the only viable option.The political impasse has come as Turkey is plunged into one of the biggest security crises of the AKP’s rule, with the military pursuing a controversial cross-border “anti-terror” operation against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Kurdish militants in northern Iraq.
