TURKEY/FILE: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan poised to win Turkey's first popular presidential vote

Record ID: 217750

  • Title: TURKEY/FILE: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan poised to win Turkey's first popular presidential vote
  • Date: 9th August 2014
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (FILE - MARCH 26 1999) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) BUS ESCORTED BY POLICE CARRYING ERDOGAN AND HIS WIFE DRIVING TOWARDS PRISON COMPOUND ERDOGAN WAVING AT HIS SUPPORTERS ISTANBUL, TURKEY (FILE - JULY 24, 1999) (REUTERS) CROWD APPLAUDING ERDOGAN WAVING AT HIS SUPPORTERS AFTER GETTING OUT OF PRISON WOMEN HUGGING MAN IMPLORING MERCY ISTANBUL, TURKEY (FILE
  • Embargoed: 24th August 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3FK3LL94FHQF7GULHSRIJSDH9
  • Story Text: A quick glance at the emerging candidates for Turkey's first direct presidential poll illustrates the dramatic change wrought in the country by Tayyip Erdogan's 11-year premiership; an old secularist elite has yielded the stage to two men of Islamist pedigree and a third from a long-suppressed Kurdish minority.
    Prime Minister Erdogan, his popularity unscathed by a flare-up of anti-government riots and a corruption scandal, is hoping to become Turkey's first directly elected president in a vote on August 10 and he has made little secret of his desire to see the largely ceremonial role imbued with far greater clout if, as expected, he wins.
    "I am determined to continue to construct the new Turkey as president. Brothers, sisters, please do not neglect going to the polls next Sunday. If you give me the opportunity, if you elect me President, I will carry this holy journey that has begun in Istanbul to the next level," he told crowds in Istanbul last Sunday (August 3).
    Many see his victory as inevitable. His critics fear he may use the role to tighten his grip on political power, putting at risk more than a decade of growth and stability.
    Erdogan himself served a brief prison sentence in 1999 on charges of Islamist activity. After taking the reins of power only four years later, he tamed an army that had seen itself as final guarantor against Islamism and had toppled four governments in four decades.
    The combative prime minister has endured one of the most challenging periods of his political career, facing down widespread anti-government protests and a corruption scandal over the past year, as well as contending with a deepening security threat posed by chaos in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.
    His seemingly inevitable ascent to a presidency he says will be imbued with greater authority by the direct nature of the vote - previous incumbents have been chosen by parliament - has raised fears among his opponents that his autocratic instincts will only increase.
    Since his AK party came to power in 2002, he has built huge support among conservative Muslims, many of them poor, who had felt treated as second-class citizens in a secular society.
    Political analysts believe that Erdogan's public support stems from economical and social reforms that went into effect over the past decade.
    "Some people vote for Erdogan because they find him charismatic or because they think the AK Party or Erdogan is conservative, but these are not the real motives. The outcome of the research that we have been carrying out for 12 years show that the common reasons why Erdogan is a charismatic leader and the AK Party is a winner are based on economical and sociological grounds," political analyst Adil Gur told Reuters Television.
    Two polls late last month suggested Erdogan would comfortably win the election in the first round on Aug. 10, giving him 55-56 percent of the vote, a 20-point lead over a joint candidate by the CHP, the party of secular state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the nationalist MHP, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, his nearest challenger.
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