ANKARA: Turkey’s ruling party would overwhelmingly back Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s candidacy in the nation’s first direct presidential election, senior officials said yesterday, a move his opponents fear would feed his autocratic instincts.
The president has until now been chosen by parliament and played a largely ceremonial role, but Erdogan has said the popular vote will bestow the post with more authority and has vowed to exercise its full powers if elected.
A majority of the 300 deputies in Erdogan’s AK Party voted in a secret ballot on Wednesday in favour of him running in the August presidential election, party officials said.
The vote was meant as an informal test of the level of support within the party for a bid by Erdogan, which would mean him stepping down as party leader. The prime minister alone will decide on his candidacy, his aides have said.
Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, has made little secret of his ambition to run for the job. His party’s strong showing in local elections last month, despite a corruption scandal dogging his inner circle, has strengthened expectations he will do so.
But his opponents fear an ascent to the presidency would consolidate too much power in the hands of a man whose response to the graft allegations — reassigning thousands of police and prosecutors and blocking access to social media sites — they say has betrayed his increasingly authoritarian impulses.
Parliament approved a new law boosting the powers of the secret service (MIT) later yesterday, proposals the government says will bring it in line with international peers but which the opposition sees as another bid by Erdogan to tighten his grip on the apparatus of state.
“MIT will from now on be able to have access to all the records of banks, public institutions, corporate entities and unions,” said Atilla Kart, a member of parliament for the main opposition CHP. “The concept of professional or commercial confidentiality will lose all meaning.”
Control of security services goes to the heart of a feud between Erdogan and Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally based in the United States whose network of followers wields influence in the police and judiciary.
Erdogan accuses Gulen’s network of contriving the graft scandal as part of a plot to undermine him. His aides have said his determination to see off the threat may mean him abandoning any presidential bid and staying on for a fourth term as prime minister, currently a more powerful post.
Such a move would require the AK Party to vote to change its internal rules and remove a three-term limit for its parliamentary deputies, something to which Erdogan has repeatedly said he is in principle opposed.
“An overwhelming majority within the party says that Erdogan should become the president and the results of the voting have depicted that as well,” a senior party official said after Wednesday’s secret ballot.
“A small group said Erdogan should not run in the elections as there will be critical developments ahead during which his leadership will be much needed,” the official said.
The AK Party’s deputy chairman, Huseyin Celik, said on Wednesday that the group would hold a series of meetings on the presidential election culminating in early May, after which a decision would be announced.
Incumbent President Abdullah Gul was the second choice of presidential nominee in the secret ballot, officials said. Gul is a close Erdogan ally and co-founder of the party, and is tipped as a possible prime minister should Erdogan run.
REUTERS
ANKARA: Turkey’s government yesterday said it still hopes Twitter will open an office in the country, a day after the social networking site ruled out any such move.
In a statement following several days of talks with Twitter executives, Communication Minister Lutfi Elvan said Turkey had suggested that the company open a “liaison office” to improve coordination with the government.
Elvan added that the country’s telecommunications authority would now pixelate all text and images on Twitter deemed inappropriate.
AFP
