Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not yet announced that he will run for president in the elections to be held Aug. 10. He may remain mute on the subject, but senior members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are spelling it out plainly. Mehmet Ali Sahin, a former justice minister currently a deputy head of the AKP, is one such person.
Addressing party supporters on May 30 in Cankiri province, Sahin announced that the AKP wanted to see Erdogan become president, saying, “They say, ‘Tayyip Erdogan should not be a candidate. He is behaving like a dictator.’ Forget it! Tayyip Erdogan will continue to serve this nation and he will do so as president.”