In Turkey, several opposition parties have lodged an objection to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s renewed candidacy with the electoral authorities. The opposition party Deva said that this was unconstitutional because he had already been elected president twice.
In Turkey, there has long been a discussion as to whether the constitution allows Erdogan to stand again. Presidential and parliamentary elections will take place on May 14th.
Elections were ordered by presidential decree
The opposition argues that according to the constitution, Erdogan – who was elected president for the first time in 2014 and for a second time in 2018 – can only run for a third time if parliament forces new elections. However, the elections were ordered by presidential decree.
Nothing stands in the way of Erdogan’s candidacy, repeated the spokesman for the AKP party, Ömer Celik, on Tuesday. Erdogan was elected the first president in a new presidential system in 2018 after a constitutional amendment – according to the government, previous terms of office do not count. Constitutional law experts are divided on whether a new candidacy is possible or not.
Before the Deva party, the Iyi party, among others, had already asked the electoral authorities to remove Erdogan from the provisional list of candidates. The final list is to be published in the State Gazette on March 31.
