Is Erdogan thinking of being president of Türkiye for life?

According to the international group Tasnim news agency, Erdogan’s words a few days ago about the last The election of its political life has attracted the attention of Turkish media and political circles. Turkey will soon hold municipal elections, and considering that until 2028 and the end of Erdogan’s term of office, as well as the end During the life of the parliament, there will not be another election, Erdogan’s words are correct.

But the interesting thing is that some of Erdogan’s close friends have declared that changing the law in the parliament has nothing to do with them, and even without changing the law and with Relying on the current clauses, they can allow Erdogan to run again by holding early elections!

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the Justice and Development Party, has been the president for 3 times, but the ruling party believes that because his first term was during the parliamentary system and he was not elected by direct vote of the people, then that one term should not be counted. !

With this logic of Justice and Development Party representatives, only the period from 20018 to 20023 and 20023 to 20028 is recognized as the two periods of Erdogan’s presidency. But now some lawyers close to Erdoğan believe that if the second term is frozen and stopped in the middle or for example in 2027 and Erdoğan himself orders early elections, he is still allowed to run because the term He has not finished his second term!

These issues show that the president of Turkey does not want to retire and wants to determine the preparations for his fourth term at the end of 2027.

Murad Yetkin, one of the famous Turkish analysts, wrote a note about this strange perception of the ruling party of Turkey, which has attracted the attention of many Turkish media. We review:

Is Erdogan seeking power for life?
Once again, time It is time to raise this question: Is President Tayyip Erdogan seeking to achieve a permanent and lifelong power or not? Not for Justice and Development Party and competitors. This question is important for Turkey’s political structure in many ways. A few days ago, Erdogan said in a field speech to his supporters: “This is my last election.” But we all know that this is not the first time that Erdogan has said something like this to his voters. In response to the political and economic conditions of the country, one day he says, we have difficult conditions ahead, and another day he says, this is the last time, this time vote for this brother of yours!

After Erdogan’s recent words We witnessed special and meaningful statements by Bekir Bozdagh. He, who used to be the Minister of Justice and is now a representative of the ruling party in the Parliament’s Presidium, said on his account on social networks: “Nobody knows the future!” What the distant tomorrow brings for us is unknown. Maybe the right time will come for our parliament to decide to renew the elections and pave the way for the re-candidacy of our president”. Article 101 of the Constitution states: “Everyone can be elected to the presidency a maximum of two times.” On the other hand, Bozdag refers to Article 116, Paragraph 3, which is included in the Constitution by recalling “re-election” or “early elections”, which practically enables the re-election of the president.

presidential terms. In a way that does not count “early elections” as the end of a period! In other words, if the parliament decides to hold early elections, even if it is a quarter before the end of the president’s 5-year term, Erdogan can run again!

According to Article 101 of the Constitution, Erdogan’s nomination in The 2023 elections were also controversial and had many legal problems.

Mustafa Sentop, the previous speaker of the Turkish parliament, stated that since the constitution was changed in 2017, Erdogan’s election as president in 2014 will not be counted and only his election in 2018 will be counted and therefore he has the right to be nominated!

This issue was so sensitive that it could be taken to the Constitutional Court. The opposition parties had the chance to get a ruling from the court and Erdogan would lose the permission to run in the 2023 elections. But Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the People’s Republic Party, and Meral Aksner, the leader of the Good Party, came to such a hasty assessment: We, who are in the elections, can easily defeat this person. Why waste our time in court?!

If Erdogan is not satisfied with the fourth round, what is the solution?
According to the strange argument of Bozdag and others, Erdogan is allowed to order early elections and run for the fourth time before reaching the final station of 2028.

But if It will repeat the same cycle again in 2032, what is the solution? The first answer that comes to mind is the possibility of amending the constitution. Maybe Erdogan wants to tell his voters: “Give the key to Istanbul to my party and show our power once again and then change the constitution”. Turkey’s constitution, Erdogan needs a two-thirds vote in parliament. That means 400 seats out of 600 available. In order to increase the number of seats, he can use the bargaining tool and electoral coalition in the municipal competition and give enough points to secure the required 400 seats.

Erdogan needs three-fifths of the votes of the parliament to hold early elections, which is equivalent to 360 seats out of 600 seats in the parliament. Although Turkey’s political and economic conditions are not suitable at the moment, Bekir Bozdag indicated that they will implement such a scenario “at the right time”. Parliament finally has 322 seats and needs 28 seats to decide to move towards early elections. Therefore, Erdoğan has to give concessions to everyone and leave the gates of his coalition open even to the Meral Action Party and the Party of Democracy and People’s Equality or the Tail Party.

After Erdogan’s words about the “last election”, China and the preparation of the early elections in Bozdag opened this chapter for bargaining before the March 31 elections, and it seems that Erdogan is already trying to pave this way.

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