Turkish President Erdoğan forms team to monitor Cabinet

Ümit Çetin - ANKARA

Erdoğan poses at the controversial new presidential mansion in Ankara.

The Turkish president is set to establish a team to monitor the work of the Cabinet, despite putatively being above the political realm as the head of state.

Ahead of the presidential elections in August, then-Prime Minister Erdoğan had promised to be “a sweating president who will follow the construction of airports, highways and the unity of the nation,” and he is now taking the first concrete steps to review and evaluate the work of the legislative branch.

The assignment diagram of the presidential team has already been prepared, but has yet to be publicized, Hürriyet has learned. The assignments will be made official following an amendment to the regulations after Erdoğan formally moves into the gargantuan new presidential complex in Ankara.

Here is how the team is expected to be formed and work:

* Special directorates will be formed in the presidency. These units will report to the presidency’s deputy secretary-generals on specific subjects.

* Advisers working for the directorates will follow, evaluate and report on all the work of the ministries that they monitor. They will send the files to the deputy secretary-general who they report to.

* Deputy secretary-generals will share this information with Erdoğan. 

* Advisers will not only report about ministries, they will also meet with each other, regardless of their area of expertise, to produce new ideas. A source in Ankara has likened their newly-defined function in the presidency to a "think tank."

* Two key issues to which Erdoğan attaches great importance, the Kurdish peace bid and the government’s fight against the “parallel structure” of Fethullah Gülen followers within the state, will be followed by the Interior Security Follow-Up Directorate. Presidential Secretary-General İbrahim Kalın, a close aide of Erdoğan, is expected to chair this unit.

* Investments, another issue to which Erdoğan attaches great importance, will be monitored by the Investments Directorate. According to the source, Erdoğan is considering appointing İzmir Deputy Binali Yıldırım, a former transport minister, to chair the unit. If appointed, Yıldırım will not officially be able to take this office so long as he remains a deputy, at least until the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2015.