‘No double-headed AKP’ in post-Erdoğan era

Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan instructs his party’s leaders to avoid ‘double-headed management’ if he is elected president and also stressed that ‘the three-term rule’ would be maintained Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has instructed his party’s leaders to avoid “double-headed management” if he is elected president in August’s elections, Justice and Development Party (AKP) sources have told daily Hürriyet.

Erdoğan’s presidential candidacy was announced by the AKP at a ceremony in Ankara that was attended by 4,000 supporters on July 1. The Turkish PM made clear in his speech that he wanted to be elected president in the first round of the Aug. 10 elections in which a vote of 50 percent plus one is needed.

Following the official announcement, Erdoğan first met with his aides and then the provincial heads of his party to discuss what is being dubbed “the second-phase plan.”

“It will be regarded as treason to suggest names for the post of prime minister before the president is elected. There won’t be a double-headed management in the party,” Erdoğan told his party officials, according to sources in the AKP.

Erdoğan also stressed that “the three-term rule” would be maintained. As a consequence, the candidates for the Prime Ministry in the post-Erdoğan AKP are being re-evaluated in the light of Erdoğan’s latest position.

In the backstage of the ruling party, President Abdullah Gül remains the most popular figure for the position of prime minister under the possible presidency of Erdoğan. However, Erdoğan’s ruling out of midterm elections means Gül...