The calling of snap general and presidential elections in Turkey is by now out of the question, Mahir Unal, spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AKP told broadcaster NTV on August 10.

The parliamentary and presidential polls are scheduled to be held simultaneously in November 2019.

The AKP is right now busying itself with a period of restructuring, Unal added.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who regained the leadership of the AKP in May after being given the power to do so by the narrow official win of the Yes camp in the April referendum on adopting a powerful executive presidency - has lately been complaining of a "fatigue" within the party’s ranks, and has called for a rejuvenation.

“We will review and update all our provincial organisations in the cities, districts and villages because there is a mental fatigue that we need to avoid. We have to get ready for the 2019 elections with more dynamic and hardworking teams,” Erdogan told AKP lawmakers in his first address as the restored party leader on May 30, Hurriyet Daily News reported at the time.

“Clearly he [Erdogan] does not see the 51.4% approval he received in the April referendum for concentrating all executive power in presidential hands as a guarantee for 2019. Within that 51.4% there were not only AKP votes but also votes from the Nationalist Movement Party and the Islamist-nationalist Great Unity Party,” political commentator Murat Yetkin noted in an August 8 article for Hurriyet Daily News.

Right now of course Erdogan retains the power to rule by decree given the state of emergency introduced in Turkey after the events of July last year in which an attempt was made at overthrowing the government. Erdogan has said he is not prepared to put a date on the lifting of the state of emergency until he is satisfied that the country has been stabilised by the crackdown on its enemies. The emergency rule has been extended four times. Brussels, meanwhile, has warned Turkey against continuing what it sees as a slide to authoritarianism, saying there can be no progress in talks over the Turks acceding into the EU until Ankara restores curtailed human rights.

After consultations with Erdogan, PM Binali Yildirim announced a limited cabinet reshuffle on July 19 which some commentators described as merely “cosmetic”. Yildirim replaced or swapped 11 ministers but kept the economic management team largely in place, a move widely seen as pleasing foreign investors. Deputy PM Mehmet Simsek, Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci and Finance Minister Naci Agbal retained their posts.

The government’s autumn priority will be the economy, Hurriyet Daily News quoted Yildirim as saying on August 4. He added that work on new economic programmes was under way. But he declined to provide details.