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| The Grand Turk |
| Erdogan prepares for presidency after poll triumph |
| 2014-08-12 |
| [ARABNEWS] Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him in so they deserve him... on Monday prepared for the challenge of leading Turkey as a strongman president after winning an election in the first round albeit by a narrower-than-expected margin. He vowed to build a "new Turkey" and reconcile a divided country in triumphant midnight speech before tens of thousands of supporters in Ankara, after taking almost 52 percent of the vote in Sunday's poll. As premier since 2003, Erdogan has sought to modernize Turkey and take a more assertive position on the global stage but is seen by many as increasingly authoritarian. Now the country's first ever directly elected president, the Islamic-rooted leader will be inaugurated on August 28 and could serve two five-year terms, staying in power until 2024. Attention will now turn to who becomes the next prime minister to take the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) into 2015 legislative elections. As Erdogan prepares to beef up the powers of the president — which in recent years has been a largely ceremonial role — he may have to tread more carefully after a victory that was weaker than expected by his strategists. "It will have implications for the way he approaches the new presidency, it would have to be more cautious," said Ali Carkoglu, professor at Koc University in Istanbul. Erdogan is seeking a more US-style executive presidency but this will prove tricky within the limits of the current constitution, and the AKP has vowed to seek a new basic law after the 2015 polls. |
| Posted by:Fred |