A year after a switch to an executive presidency with a more powerful president, Turkey's ruling party is planning a revision of the government system, which, analysts said, was necessitated by the party's recent election defeat and a sluggish economy.

People within the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have started to express their growing discontent with the new system more strongly following the election loss in Istanbul, Ertugrul Gunay, a former cabinet minister from the ruling party, told Xinhua.

The AKP suffered a major defeat in last month's highly controversial rerun of the mayoral election in Istanbul, which it ruled for over two decades.

Turkey opted for a switch from parliamentarian democracy to a presidential system following a referendum in 2017 despite much criticism from the opposition.

The new government system has been fully in effect since the presidential election in June last year, in which AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan won with 52 percent of the votes.

"Erdogan calls all the shots in the current system and such a system can't be expected to function healthily in this day and age," remarked Gunay, who cut off his ties with the AKP years ago.

Both the AKP's bad score in local elections and the ailing economy have to do with the decision to revise the system, Oguz Oyan, a former deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party, told Xinhua.

Turkey's debt-stricken economy is suffering from high inflation, unemployment and recession.

It is widely argued that the deterioration in the economy was a major factor in the AKP's loss of votes in the local elections held on March 31, in which the ruling party and its nationalist ally lost some major cities such as Ankara, the capital, Antalya and Adana to the opposition bloc.

The rerun of the Istanbul election, which took place on June 23 upon the AKP's appeal, made things more difficult for the ruling party.

The margin in votes rose from over 13,000 in the March election to over 800,000 in favor of the opposition candidate in the repeat election.

President Erdogan announced his decision for a revision of the current government system two days after Istanbul's fresh election.

A comprehensive study had been launched to find out the deficiencies, flaws and what needs to be improved in the new government system, the president said, noting the new system had been embraced by the nation in a general way.

The opposition argues, however, that the AKP's loss in votes is also an indication that the nation is not happy with an executive system that lacks the usual checks and balances.

The opposition keeps calling on the AKP to switch back to the parliamentarian system in which the president has much less power and would not be able to head the party after election into office.

The AKP has signaled that it does not seek a major overhaul in the current government system.

The switch back to the parliamentarian system is out of the question, but a revision of the current system based on "our experience of it" during the past year is possible, said Bulent Turan, deputy chairman of the AKP's parliamentary group.

"I don't expect the AKP to revise the system to strengthen democracy, separation of powers," said Gunay.

"This is essentially an attempt by the AK Party aimed at changing the political agenda, an effort to gain time to face mounting criticism," he argued.

None of the analysts was expecting Erdogan to give up the AKP chairmanship or the current government system to be revised in a fundamental way.

A reshuffle in the cabinet is what many expect, and Erdogan may also increase the number of vice presidents to two or three.

In recent years, a good number of prominent AKP figures have distanced themselves from the party, largely due to what they called increasing authoritarianism and divergences within it.

Among them, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and deputy prime minister Ali Babacan are expected to separately establish new political parties in the coming months.

Erdogan would risk losing control of the AKP in case he cuts off ties with the party, said Gunay.

Erdogan figured prominently in the AKP's election campaigns ahead of the March elections, and was said to have even overshadowed the party's mayoral candidates.

People did not like Erdogan to be part of the election campaigns as if he himself were a mayoral candidate, nor they get used to his keeping his party's chairmanship, remarked Oyan.

"The Turkish people have been historically accustomed to having an impartial president," he added.

The worsening economic figures since last year's presidential election have also contributed to the dissatisfaction with the new government system.

"The people have put the deterioration in the economy down to the executive presidency," Ozer Sencar, head of the Metropoll polling company, told Xinhua.

"If the economy had not deteriorated, those who voted in the referendum in favor of a switch to the executive presidency would have no complaints about the functioning of the current government system," he argued.

According to a Metropoll survey conducted in Istanbul in mid-June, the number of those favoring the presidential system fell by 9 percentage points as compared to the 2017 vote.