Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan completed his first ten years in office today [March 15] while resting at his Istanbul home since he called sick in with flu on Tuesday.
When the Justice and Development Party won a resounding election victory in November 2002, capturing two-thirds of the seats in parliament, Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, was not even able to run for office. The Turkish Constitution barred him from politics because he had been convicted and served a brief 1999 jail term for “inciting religious enmity.” The parliament overturned the laws that prevented him from running for public office, and he won a parliamentary seat in a by-election on March 9, 2003 in the province of Siirt. He took over the prime ministry from Abdullah Gul five days later — making Gul the shortest-servingin office with four months only.
