Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 11 that he has not yet made up his mind to run for president in the first public election for the post. He said, however, that if he gets elected three months from now he won’t be a passive president performing only ceremonial duties. He argued that the opposition has no chance to defeat his party’s candidate at the ballot box.
“The opposition is now talking about coming up with a joint candidate. They, however, fail to understand that the people once again threw their support behind us with the March 30 local elections,” Erdogan said, addressing the Justice and Development Party (AKP) annual gathering on Sunday in Afyonkarahisar. According to Erdogan, the country’s two leading opposition parties — the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) — have no chance to convince their bases in favor of a joint candidate and to win the Kurdish vote all at the same time.