No legal obstacle before Erdoğan’s presidential nomination: Parliament Speaker

ANKARA 

Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop has said there is no legal obstacle in front of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s nomination for next year’s presidential elections, dismissing the opposition’s arguments that it will be Erdoğan’s third term although the constitution limits the presidential service to two terms.

“There is no uncertainty there. [The opposing views] are voiced by some legal experts who don’t know the constitutional amendments [of 2017] well,” Şentop told the reporters at a reception held on the occasion of the commencement of the new Legislative Year late on Oct. 1.

Some opposition members argue that President Erdoğan cannot run for the presidential elections in 2023 as he already served two terms between 2014 and 2018 and 2018 and 2023. The constitution limits the presidential service to two terms, they stress.

Dismissing this interpretation, Şentop recalled that Erdoğan was elected as the president for the first time in 2014 according to the provisions of the former constitution. Türkiye replaced the parliamentary system with the presidential system through a referendum in 2017 and the provisions for the election of the president has entirely changed, Şentop stressed, adding President Erdoğan’s election as the president in 2018 was his first term under the new constitution.

“There is not the slightest uncertainty over his presidential candidacy,” he said. Türkiye will go to parliamentary and presidential elections in June 2023 but there are views that the polls can take place a few months before.

“There are two ways to do so: Either a presidential decision or the votes of three-fifths of the Parliament,” Şentop said. Under normal conditions, the elections will be held on June 18, 2023, but many argue that the polls should be held in May as all the weekends in June are devoted to university entrance exams or other nation-wide educational exams.