Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop said the question of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's eligibility to run as a candidate in the 2023 elections is closed to discussion as the Constitutional Commission allows him to seek reelection.
Turkey's opposition parties recently claimed that Erdoğan was ineligible to run for another term as the position is limited to two terms.
However, Şentop noted that the constitutional changes approved in 2018, which changed Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential one, allows the president to run again.
Şentop noted that he headed the Constitutional Commission in late 2016 and they had discussed this issue with the participation of opposition lawmakers, none of whom brought up the notion that the president cannot run for another term.
“It has been five years but it has just registered with them. They think they found something new but we had already discussed this situation five years ago,” Şentop added.
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairperson Devlet Bahçeli had also dismissed the opposition’s claims, saying that Erdoğan is eligible to run for another term in the 2023 elections. Calling the claims “black propaganda,” Bahçeli said their arguments have no legal or constitutional basis.
“Mr. Erdoğan is the first President of the Presidential System of Government and there is no obstacle preventing him from being a candidate again,” Bahçeli said.
