Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairperson Devlet Bahçeli said that there is no obstacle to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's candidacy for the presidency in next year’s elections.
“Mr. Erdoğan is the first president of the Presidential Government System and there is no legal hindrance to his re-election,” Bahçeli reportedly said in a closed-door meeting at MHP’s evaluation camp in Ankara’s Kızılcahamam district.
He noted that Erdoğan is the candidate of the People's Alliance bloc in the election to be held in June 2023.
“Mr. Erdoğan is clearly our candidate for next elections. I believe that he will win the election by a wide margin in the June 2023 election and The People's Alliance will also succeed (in the parliamentary election),” he said.
The MHP leader said that there is no legal ground behind allegations that Erdoğan cannot run for next term as it will be his third term in the presidency.
Some opposition figures oppose Erdoğan's candidacy, saying that the president can only be elected for two terms according to the Constitution. Erdoğan, who became president in the 2014 elections, was reelected in 2018. Erdoğan supporters, on the other hand, say that with the referendum held in 2017, the new government system was implemented and that Erdoğan was elected president for the first time in the new system in 2018, so there is no obstacle in his candidacy for the second time in the 2023 elections.
Speaking recently on the issue, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said that they will not hold a special discussion for Erdoğan's candidacy and that the discussions should now be left behind.
"If he wants to be a candidate, let him come. Even if others argue, we won’t discuss about this issue. There may be an (early) election in the autumn; we will wait for the ballot box," he said.
