President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday announced he will be the presidential candidate for the People’s Alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), responding to the opposition’s demands that a candidate is determined.
Speaking during a ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) event in western Izmir, Erdoğan called on the chairperson of the Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and said: “You continually say ‘the candidate of the People’s Alliance should be determined.’ Here I say it, the candidate of the People’s Alliance is Tayyip Erdoğan.”
“If you have the courage, declare your candidacy or the candidate of the alliance.”
The alliance of opposition parties has yet to announce its presidential candidate, although Kılıçdaroğlu and the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul are viewed as top contenders.
The president also reiterated that elections would take place in June 2023 and not earlier.
Erdoğan has led the country for almost 20 years, first as prime minister and then as president.
"Just as we have brought together centuries-old work and services to our country over the past 20 years, I hope we will build a great and powerful Turkey together again in the coming days," said Erdoğan.
The AK Party first swept into power in the November 2002 elections.
Turkey is set to hold nationwide elections in June 2023, when voters will choose the president as well as all 600 members of parliament.
The president and parliamentary lawmakers are elected to five-year terms, although the president also has the power to call for early elections.
After serving as prime minister since 2003, Erdoğan took the presidential reins starting in 2014, but only one term so far after Turkey's 2017 shift to a presidential system of government.
Under the new system, presidents are limited to two full terms in office.
