Yıldırım to be given mandate for new gov’t after AKP convention

“I suppose [Prime Minister] Ahmet Bey [Davutoğlu] will introduce his resignation on that day [May 22]. After his resignation, I want to give the mandate to the new prime minister right that night in order not to delay the process,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told A Haber in an interview late May 19. 

Turkey’s ruling party will change its leader through an extraordinary convention on May 22 after Davutoğlu decided to step down due to a rift with Erdoğan. An in-house survey in the AKP resulted in a consensus over the name of Yıldırım, one of Erdoğan’s confidants. 

“It seems that the party will go to the convention with just one candidate. This shows around 81 or 82 percent consensus. All the delegates will be able to decide about the candidate and will elect the chairman of our party… I will say our party as I am its founding chairman,” he said. 


Gov’t to be ready next week

Turkey will host the U.N. Humanitarian Summit on May 23 and 24 and will convene the National Security Council (MGK) this week, Erdoğan said, informing that he is planning to approve the new government most probably in his return from the U.N. meeting late on May 24. 

The next government under Yıldırım’s leadership will have to read its program after the approval and then submit to a vote of confidence in Parliament probably on May 29. 

Yıldırım is expected to make important changes in the cabinet in a bid to work in “full harmony” with Erdoğan and other AKP executives, he said in his first statement after being announced as the AKP’s candidate for the leadership. 


Yıldırım third AKP chairman

Yıldırım will become the third chairman of the AKP, after Erdoğan and Davutoğlu and the 27th prime minister of Turkey on May 22. He will also make drastic changes to the party management and renew the 50-seat Central Decision-Making Body of the AKP. 


Gül congratulates Yıldırım

In the meantime, former President Abdullah Gül phoned Yıldırım to congratulate him on being designated the AKP’s leader and therefore the new prime minister, Anadolu Agency reported May 20. While Gül wished Yıldırım success in his new position, the next leader invited the former president to the AKP’s extraordinary convention.