Parties’ candidate MP lists stir debate

ANKARA

All political parties eligible to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections have submitted their lists of nominees to the Supreme Election Board (YSK), prompting in-house debates as many sitting members are excluded from running for the 600-seat parliament.

The deadline for the submission of the lists was 5:00 p.m. local time on May 21. Leaders and their closest aides of all parties have been intensely working behind doors to finalize their parliamentary nominations.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) chairman and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spent the day at the party headquarters on May 21 to have the last word on the lists.

The AKP is 18 years old with 57 nominees under 25 who will run for Parliament. The Energy Minister and Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak was nominated for Parliament from Istanbul. Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım was also nominated for Parliament while EU Minister Ömer Çelik will not run for Parliament.

Economy Minister Mehmet Şimşek will also not be in Parliament in the next term.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has also been nominated for Parliament from his homeland Antalya. Deputy Prime Minister Hakan Çavuşoğlu will run for Parliament from Bursa. In the new presidential system, those who are appointed as ministers will have to resign from Parliament.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has undergone a significant change in its parliamentary group for the upcoming parliamentary elections, as the partial list revealed 61 of the 131 current lawmakers have changed. The partial list of candidates from the CHP was revealed after the Party Assembly and Central Executive Board were convened on May 20, as the names of candidates from 28 cities of Turkey indicate major changes in the party’s lawmaker configuration.

With the changes, a large number of candidates determined in the preliminary elections within the CHP organizations were left out from the list, while the names from the Central Executive Board and the Party Assembly have found a place.

Former CHP leader Deniz Baykal was presented as a candidate from his constituency Antalya from the first position, while imprisoned CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoğlu was presented from Istanbul from the first position. Constitutional law professor İbrahim Kaboğlu, who was dismissed from his post at Marmara University due to the state of emergency decree, is also on the list.

AKP’s founding member to run from CHP

The AKP’s founding member Abdullatif Şener was presented as a candidate from Konya. His name was among the CHP’s presidential candidates. Some of the names that were within presidential candidate Muharrem İnce’s list in the former congress were left out.

Although there were speculations that İnce has shown against the exclusion of his close friends from the list and that’s why he canceled his rallies scheduled for May 21, he denied such rumors at the rally he held in Bartın on May 21.

“The announcement of these parliamentarian lists will sure make some happy and some not. This is valid for all of us. Our objective is big but time is limited. We have no time to deal with such things,” İnce said.

“When I am elected president, I will be the one preparing the list for the cabinet,” he said, advising the people not to be preoccupied with such things.

Some CHP seats reserved for the SP

As the main opposition party have formed an alliance with the Felicity Party (SP), some of the places within the 600-lawmaker list were left blank for SP lawmakers.

Fifteen lawmakers who had resigned from the CHP to ensure the İYİ (Good) Party’s participation in elections have returned to their parties and will find a place in the CHP’s candidate list.

The official list will be announced on May 30.