Heads of state

Just as people began to talk about a power struggle between Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in the final days of 2014, Erdoğan finished the debate like Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian knot.

Ahmet Davutoğlu officially became prime minister on Wednesday. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan officially becomes president today. We now have a popularly elected president and a popularly elected prime minister at Turkey’s helm.

A very important week is starting for Turkey. The unprecedented era of two prime ministers and two presidents will come to an end with one of the presidents packing up and moving to Istanbul to become a well-paid pensioner, while the other will relinquish his helm on the prime ministry and move on to become the country’s newly elected 12th president.

One of the most debated issues regarding Turkish Prime Minister and now President-elect Tayyip Erdoğan’s upcoming term as president surrounds his ruling style. Throughout the election campaign, he said he was to use his presidential powers extensively, unlike previous presidents.

Under the Turkish Constitution, the moment a candidate is elected president he is no longer a parliamentarian and should sever all ties with political parties, as the president ought to be above party politics. Because under the Constitution the prime minister must be a parliamentarian, continuing in the prime ministry after being elected president cannot be on the cards anyway.

The Constitutional Court of Romania on Wednesday unanimously ruled that there was no juridical conflict of a constitutional nature between the Government and the Presidency over the representation of Romania at a June summit meeting of the European Council.

The ruling is final and generally binding.