Turkey shifts to presidential system

ANKARA: As Turkey’s incoming prime minister prepares to name his new cabinet, there is little doubt that its primary role will be to rubber-stamp what has already become reality: a shift to a full presidential system with Tayyip Erdogan firmly in charge.

Erdogan on Sunday confirmed Binali Yildirim, a close ally for two decades and a co-founder of the ruling AK Party, as his new prime minister, ensuring government loyalty as he pursues constitutional change to replace Turkey’s parliamentary democracy with an executive presidency.

Yildirim’s appointment will stamp out any vestiges of resistance in the AKP to Erdogan’s plans, three senior party officials said, forecasting that the new cabinet, expected to be announced on Tuesday, would contain only loyalists.

“We have entered a period of a ‘de facto’ presidential system, where Erdogan’s policies will be implemented very clearly,” one of the officials said, predicting five or six ministerial changes from the existing team.

“They will lead to complete harmony between Erdogan and the cabinet ...Erdogan’s decisions will be implemented without being touched,” the official said, speaking anonymously because the final decision on the appointments has not yet been made.

Erdogan and his supporters see an executive presidency - a Turkish take on the system in the United States or France - as a guarantee against the sort of fractious coalition politics that hampered Turkey’s development in the 1990s, when it was an economic backwater with little clout on the world stage.

His opponents, and sceptical Western allies, fear growing authoritarianism. Prosecutors have opened more than 1,800 cases against people for insulting Erdogan since he became president in 2014.