Erdoğan legendary founding leader of AKP, PM says

ANKARA

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the legendary founding leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said, responding to a question by the opposition on the leadership of the ruling AKP.

“While I am here, it is not proper, but a friend of yours [from the opposition] asked who the leader of the AKP is,” Davutoğlu said during a budget meeting in parliament on Feb. 26.

“Yes, AKP politics’ 13-year-old success story’s legendary founding leader is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan... and I was elected as the new leader of the party at the ‘adherence congress’ by getting all the votes of our delegates with honor. There were no games in my coming to the leadership; there will not be any. I took over this duty from a leader who I see as my earthly and ethereal brother. When the day comes I will hand it [the leadership] over to another brother with honor,” he added.

Side-stepping a question on the cost of the newly built presidential palace asked by main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Davutoğlu, referring to the CHP, said: “Win the elections and sit there.”

“Our president came [to power] by getting support from the nation, by getting 52 percent of the votes. You can criticize it but no one can cover this incident up. This palace is the property of the nation. It did not come to any of us as an inheritance from our fathers... Instead of arguing about the palace, get prepared well for the 2019 elections, win the elections and you will sit there. Parliament determines the fate of the nation,” Davutoğlu said.

Referring to the talks over the forging of a new constitution, Davutoğlu said, “Let us all together draft a new constitution based on fundamental rights and freedoms and without setting an upper limit. Saying that ‘we don’t allow an argument over the presidential system’ is a censorship mentality. Do we say ‘we do not argue the parliamentary system?’ There is no difference, in terms of political legitimacy, between defending the parliamentary system and the presidential system. If the issue is to clear the coup d’état laws, we do it already. Let us form two separate commissions and clear the coup d’état laws on the way toward the constitution so that no one could dare to use the word ‘coup.’”