Process to pick Parliament speaker begins

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek is taking an active role for the efforts to produce the country’s new Constitution. DHA photo

As the two-year mandate of the current Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek will terminate on July 4, the election process for the country’s number two protocol is being launched today, which will also reshuffle the political party’s top executives at their parliamentary group administrations.

The four political parties represented in the Parliament will submit their nominations for the Speaker until midnight of June 28 as the election will take place on July 2. A simple majority suffices for any candidate to take this prestigious position. Although there has been no confirmation from either the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) or Çiçek himself, the incumbent speaker is expected to continue in his position for another two-year term. The most important reason for letting this veteran politician extend his mandate is seen as the ongoing Constitution-making process.

Efforts for charter

Çiçek has long exerted efforts for the continuation of the four-party Constitution Conciliation Commission as the most effective way forward, although sharp disagreements slowed down its works and only 45 articles were written in the nearly one-and-half year’s work of the commission. Çiçek’s intention is to let the commission work for another couple of months and to push the parties for completion of the process with a compromised charter on which everyone would be agreed.

Çiçek and other parties will make an overall evaluation of the work of the commission at the end of June, when the Parliament should end its legislative year if there would be no extension until the end of July, and make a decision on how to proceed.

Apart from Parliament Speaker, acting speakers, deputy parliamentary groups and other important group executives will also be elected by the parties and will be submitted to the office of the Parliament Speaker. The AKP’s group will be convened on June 28 and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) on June 26, to have internal deliberations regarding their own candidates.