AKP’s Şentop re-elected as parliament speaker

ANKARA

Mustafa Şentop, a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has been re-elected as parliament speaker for another three-year term.

Şentop, who was serving as parliament speaker since late February 2019 after his predecessor Binali Yıldırım resigned from the job as he was nominated to run for Istanbul in the March 2019 local polls, won the elections for his second term in the third round of voting with 328 votes in 600 seats.

A total of 557 lawmakers cast ballots, while seven votes were declared invalid.

Along with AKP lawmakers, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputies also supported Şentop, who will serve as the parliament speaker until the end of the remaining legislative year

Şentop ran against Haluk Koç of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Erol Katırcıoğlu of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), İmam Hüseyin Filiz of the İYİ (Good) Party, Erkan Baş of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) and AKP Istanbul deputy Abdullah Güler.

Şentop secured the simple majority of the lawmakers in the third round of votes.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan congratulated Şentop in a phone call for his reelection, the Communications Directorate said.

Speaking to lawmakers following the election, Şentop thanked the lawmakers for participating in the process.

"The election is completed. There is no doubt that I will try to serve the grand parliament under the Constitution, bylaws and other rules of law and parliamentary tendencies with justice and impartiality," he said.

He started to work at Marmara University’s Faculty of Law as a research assistant in 1993. He got a PhD in 2002 and became an associate professor in 2005 and professor in 2011. Besides Marmara University, he gave undergraduate and postgraduate lectures at various universities. He took on several administrative works at Marmara University before joining politics from the ranks of the AKP.