Erdoğan's decision to reshuffle the Cabinet following the March 29 local elections, in which the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) votes dropped, is seen as a move to reinvigorate the government and win back the lost votes. There are now high expectations that the Cabinet reshuffle will be a starting point for Turkey to address its long-standing problems. According to Habertürk's Fatih Altaylı, the meaning of the Cabinet reshuffle is not a deep one and is based on three things: Erdoğan made the ministers who lost their constituencies in the local elections pay for their failure; he tried to determine the reasons for the loss of votes and take measures to rectify them; and he took the relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into consideration. Deeming the first factor unimportant, Altaylı says there is a need to focus on the second factor. In his view, Erdoğan became disturbed about the rise of the Felicity Party (SP); Erdoğan saw that it was not the Republican People's Party (CHP), but the SP that attracted AK Party voters, and in order to prevent this, he brought the heretofore excluded figures of the National View [an Islamist ideology upon which former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's policies were based] to the foreground. According to Altaylı, the relations with the IMF were also a determining factor in Erdoğan's shaping of the Cabinet; he notes that the appointment of Mehmet Şimşek is an obvious indication of this.
Star's Eser Karakaş says for the Cabinet reshuffle to be the start of a reformist era, the changes should not be restricted to the names of the ministers, but should be reflected in mentality and initiatives as well. He says if the new Cabinet handles some of the issues that have been waiting on the agenda for a long time, it is impossible for the government to lose votes in the next election. He cites the issues that need to be resolved within 100 days of the new Cabinet: the opening of Turkey's ports and airports to Greek Cyprus in line with the customs union agreement, the opening of the border with Armenia, the opening of Heybeliada Greek Seminary, the opening of all negotiation chapters with the EU, reinstating the view that the fundamental goal of Turkish foreign policy is full membership in the EU, solving the headscarf ban at universities and establishing dialogue with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in order to find a solution to Turkey's long-standing Kurdish problem. "I am sure that a political administration that tackles these problems in the coming 100 days will not lose any votes in the next general elections, but instead it will increase its votes," says Karakaş.
Yeni Şafak's Yasin Aktay says Erdoğan's choices for new ministers show that he heeded the professional competence of these individuals when he appointed them to certain ministries and ignored the party's expectations, which he thinks was a lesson Erdoğan took from the results of the local elections. "The latest elections show that the intra-party balances were alienated from the more realistic and determining balances, which were formed with the tendencies of the public," he says, noting that the Cabinet change was a good step in order to overcome this alienation.
