Erdogan declares his presidential candidacy

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be running for president, as expected, in the August election, the first presidential election by public vote. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) kick-started the official campaign of Erdogan’s presidency on July 1 with a well-organized meeting in Ankara that had more than 4,000 invitees in attendance.

Despite the 2013 Gezi protests where people hit the streets expressing discontent with Erdogan’s governing style and where police disproportionate use of tear gas and water cannon, and despite his and his government’s name coming under a gigantic corruption and bribery scandal, Erdogan said he has never followed policies to divide or polarize people.

“We imagined a Turkey where 77 million people become brothers. We never polarized the people. We did not do the same things done to us in the past. Pay attention to the result of the March 30 local elections. AKP is present in all of Turkey’s provinces,” he said. “But you look at other political parties, they are all local. Some are representatives of a certain ethnic group, others have remained representing only those living on the beach. But the AKP is everywhere. We did not reject, or deny. We haven’t insisted on assimilating people to look like us.”

Erdogan argued that he had liberated the country since coming to power, and said his election as president would seal the end of old Turkish political order. Although the presidency is considered mostly a ceremonial office, Erdogan has proposed that a president elected with the people’s vote should automatically have more authority to shape the country’s domestic and foreign affairs. In fact, Erdogan insists that the country needs to change its parliamentary system into a presidential one — unique to Turkey — that would have some resemblance to the US presidential system.