| All Parliament members from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) support Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan as Turkey's next president, a senior minister was quoted as saying Monday. The president is elected for a single seven-year term by the 550-member Parliament, where the AKP party holds a two-third majority that will allow it to easily elect the candidate of its choice. "When you ask who should become a candidate and who should be the president, all 353 AKP deputies, excluding the Parliament speaker who cannot vote, agree on the prime minister's candidacy," the Milliyet daily quoted Deputy Prime Minister Abdel-Latif Sener as saying. Several deputies believe Erdogan should stay on as prime minister to lead the AKP to general elections in November, but say they will also support him if he decides to run for the country's highest post, Sener added. |