A president is not a king, Turkish PM Erdoğan says

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today said that the president in a presidential system would not be a king, speaking at a meeting in Ankara’s Kızılcahamam neighborhood with members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“The president in a presidential system is not a king. But some ignorant people are lying by attempting to represent the president as a king,” Erdoğan told the AKP representatives of district and provincial branches today, calling on them to intervene and persuade in the debates over the presidential system.

Erdoğan said former prime ministers - the late Turgut Özal and Süleyman Demirel - also brought the presidential system onto the agenda in the past. “This is not a system we are unfamiliar with. The Ottomans lived it. The most developed countries are now practicing this,” he said in his televised speech, calling on the audience to work hard to explain this to the people.

“The society must discuss this, then it will make its decision,” Erdoğan said.