Turkish PM: Snap election process to start ‘immediately’

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım on April 18 said moves to hold planned early elections in Turkey would start “immediately.”

“The process will start immediately. It should be submitted as a motion to parliament. It will be ratified by the commission and later will be debated by the full parliament,” Yıldırım told reporters at parliament in Ankara.

Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced plans to hold early presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24, saying that as the crisis in Syria accelerates the election issue should be taken off the table.

“For this reason, we have decided to hold elections on Sunday, June 24, 2018,” Erdoğan said.

The announcement came after Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli, whose party is set to enter the elections in an alliance with the AKP, called for early elections.

Supreme Election Board Chairman Sadi Güven said the country’s top election body was ready to perform its task.

“As of today, preparation for the election calendar has started. We will complete it in a day or two,” Güven told reporters in Ankara.

He also dismissed suggestions that less than three months to prepare for an election was a short amount of time.

The Higher Board of Education has announced that it had postponed university entrance exams set for June 23-24 to June 30 and July 1 to avoid any scheduling conflict.