Erdoğan will run for president for second time, not third: Parliament speaker

ANKARA

Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop has dismissed claims that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan cannot run in the next presidential elections, recalling that he was given the right to serve as president for two terms in a constitutional amendment in 2017.

“Mr. President will run for the second time,” Şentop told reporters on Feb. 10 in Ankara. Some opposition figures argue that Erdoğan cannot be nominated for the presidential elections as he has already two times as the president since 2014.

Şentop reminded that the constitutional amendments of 2017 replaced the parliamentary system with the executive-presidential model, which pledges the president the right to serve two terms.

“The Parliament’s Constitutional Panel had discussed this in 2016 and there were no opposing views [expressed by the opposition]. The report by the panel clearly underlines the right to serve two times as the president,” he said, stressing Erdoğan’s presidential tenure between 2014 and 2018 cannot be counted.

“President Erdogan’s candidacy is in question for the second time, not the third time,” he added, stressing that this is a purely legal issue and has to be studied by legal experts. “I have not seen any legal opinion that questions President Erdoğan’s candidacy for the next elections.”

Turkey will go to polls in June 2023 to both elect the president and parliament. Erdoğan was chosen as the executive-president in the June 2018 polls under the new administrative system.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said his party will not launch any discussion about Erdoğan’s candidacy as this will only be to the advantage of the president.