New cabinet to include non-AKP members: Erdoğan

ANKARA

The first cabinet of the new executive presidential system will be composed of ministers who are not members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, adding that he will form the government with his first presidential decree on July 9.

“Our organizations, municipalities, provincial organizations and ministers will not be the same as before. We are forming a cabinet with ministers who are not AKP members,” Erdoğan said on July 6 in his speech to provincial heads in Ankara.

Stating that his inauguration ceremony on July 9 will mark “the start of a new era” in Turkish politics, with the new executive presidential system fully in effect afterwards, Erdoğan said he will issue his first decree on the same day, through which the cabinet will be formed.

“We will announce our cabinet on the same day,” he added.

The cabinet’s inclusion of non-AKP members will “ensure objectivity” and “will give the minister the comfort of not having to depend on nepotism,” Erdoğan claimed.

“Nobody will be able to tell [ministers] to set up their own cadres or direct them to do something,” he said.

He underlined that with the new system all the authorities of the Prime Ministry and the cabinet will be transferred to the president-elect, who will lead the executive branch.

“The head of the government in this new system will be the leader of the AKP,” Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan also stated that the “People’s Alliance” formed by the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ahead of the June 24 election will continue in parliament.

“We will support the continuation of this alliance,” he said.

New AKP configuration

The ruling AKP will convene its congress in August and the party’s organization will be reshuffled.

Saying the AKP’s decision-making bodies will be changed, Erdoğan said the party’s organizations will then focus on preparations for local elections, currently scheduled to be held in March 2019.

Amid discussions over the possibility of rescheduling local elections, Erdoğan emphasized on March several times, refuting the claims.

“While we are [working for local elections] we have to take the relationship between candidates and the public into account,” Erdoğan said.

He said one of the main criticisms of the AKP in local organizations indicates the need for a change of attitude, warning AKP members to have “better relations with the public.”

“We came to serve not to rule … Nobody who has done wrong to the people can have a place in the AKP,” he said.

‘CHP supported terror’

Erdoğan also blasted the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for supporting the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in order to ensure the latter’s participation in parliament.

Describing the HDP as a “party that is under the control of the separatist organization,” referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Erdoğan said the CHP had directed its organization to vote for the HDP in June 24 elections in order to help it surpass the 10 percent electoral threshold.

“I urge all patriotic citizens who have voted for the CHP to ask for an account from the administration of their party for this shame,” he said.

“If the CHP does not make this self-criticism, the connection between the separatist organization and the main opposition will have become a reality, rather than being tactical,” he added.

“This nation and history will ask an account for those who transform the oldest party of Turkey into a toy of a terrorist organization living abroad and a handful of marginals in the West,” Erdoğan said.