Power to Erdogan as ally named Turkey PM
Print Edition
TURKEY’S ruling party named a loyal ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the new prime minister yesterday, with the incoming premier immediately vowing to “work in total harmony” with the strongman.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, will officially appoint Transport Minister Binali Yildirim as its chairman on Sunday, meaning he will automatically become prime minister.
Yildirim will replace Ahmet Davutoglu, who stepped down after a struggle with Erdogan, as the president seeks to concentrate more power in the presidential office.
“We will work in total harmony with all our party comrades at all levels, beginning with our founding president and leader,” said Yildirim after being named party head, referring to Erdogan.
The 60-year-old Yildirim is seen as one of Erdogan’s closest longtime confidants and has served an almost unbroken stint from 2002 to 2013 as transport minister and then again from 2015. They are both strongly opposed to resuming talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, the Kurdish militant group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks across Turkey since a two-year-long cease-fire collapsed in 2015.
The new prime minister’s main task, observers say, will be to pilot a change in the constitution to transform Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system, placing more power in Erdogan’s hands.
“And now it’s time for the presidential system,” Yildirim said earlier in May just after Davutoglu’s resignation.
Another critical task facing the new prime minister will be to negotiate with the European Union on a crunch visa deal, a key plank of an accord aimed at easing the EU’s migrant crisis.
The visa deal is at risk over Ankara’s reluctance to alter its counter-terror laws, a key requirement of the agreement, prompting Erdogan to make a series of critical statements about the EU in recent weeks.
His first high-profile outing as prime minister is expected to be the opening of the first World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul on Monday which will be attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Analysts expect that Yildirim — who has never stepped out of line with the president on a policy issue — will prove a far more pliable figure for the president than Davutoglu.
After the official appointment expected on Sunday, “the post of prime minister will have changed its meaning,” said Fuat Keyman, head of the Istanbul Policy Center think-tank.
“The president will become the head of the executive. The prime minister will become a functional cog.”
After the announcement of a single candidate, Yildirim will likely be approved as new AKP leader by an extraordinary congress of the party on Sunday.
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