ANKARA – *Turkish lawmakers have taken oaths of office as Recep TayyipErdogan starts a new term as president with sweeping new powers granted inlast year’s narrowly-won referendum.*
Members of the Turkish parliament began to take their oaths at the 600-seatlegislature in Ankara on Saturday, with the process expected to end onWednesday.
The new parliament features 295 lawmakers from Erdogan Justice andDevelopment Party (AKP) and 49 from the allied Nationalist Movement Party(MHP).
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 146 seats while thepro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) exceeded the 10-percentthreshold needed to enter the parliament. With 67 seats, the HDP forms thechamber’s second-largest opposition faction.
The number of lawmakers has increased by 50 seats in the new Turkishparliament and thus a majority in the legislature requires 301 votes.
The new Turkish parliament speaker will be elected on Thursday, with theAKP having nominated Turkey’s last prime minister Binali Yildirim for thepost.
On Monday, Erdogan will be sworn in for a second term as the Turkishpresident. He was premier for 11 years before becoming president in 2014.
The swearing-in ceremony will take place at the parliament. Later, aceremony will be held at the presidential complex to mark the country’stransition to the presidential system.
Erdogan secured an outright victory in the June 24 presidential polls,winning almost 52.3 percent of the votes.
Erdogan’s closest rival Muharrem Ince, from the CHP, won 30.6 percent ofthe votes. Selahattin Demirtas, the HDP leader, came third on 8.40 percentwhile running from a jail cell.
In his first parliamentary speech since being re-elected, Erdogan said thathe would name his cabinet on Monday, stressing that Turkey would enter anew era when he takes the presidential oath.
“As the first president of the new executive presidential system, I willannounce the cabinet at 9 pm on Monday… God willing, we will hold ourfirst cabinet meeting on Friday,” he said Saturday.
Erdogan also vowed to tackle high interest rates, inflation and a widecurrent account deficit, saying, “We will take our country much further bysolving (these) structural problems of our economy.”
In April 2017, 51 percent of Turkish voters endorsed constitutionalchanges backed by Erdogan, which scrapped the post of prime minister andallowed the president to select his own cabinet, regulate ministries andremove civil servants without parliamentary approval.
Supporters of the reforms argue that they will modernize the country, butopponents fear a possible authoritarian rule.
The constitutional overhaul means that Erdogan could potentially hold poweruntil 2028.
Earlier this week, he said that his cabinet will include ministers who arenot members of his party.
He further said that he may select some parliament deputies as ministers inhis new cabinet, saying, “Ministers may be [selected] from the parliamentas well, why not?”
In the past few years, Turkey has seen a host of terrorist attacks, most ofthem blamed on either the Daesh terrorist group or the Kurdistan Workers’Party (PKK).
The country further witnessed a failed military coup in July 2016 which wasblamed on US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Since then, Turkey has been under a state of emergency that has enabled thegovernment to go after the media and opposition groups, believed to haveplayed a role in the abortive putsch. More than 50,000 people have beenjailed and around 160,000 civil servants sacked in the crackdown.
In a latest development on Sunday, Turkey issued a decree dismissing over18,000 civil servants, half of them from the police force.
Almost 200 university academics and more than 5,000 armed forces’ personnelwere also among those fired.
Despite being a NATO member, Turkey under Erdogan has shown little interestin boosting relations with Europe and the US. Erdogan believes the EU hasunfairly prevented Turkey’s bid to join the bloc.
His grievances toward the US include Washington’s refusal to extraditefugitive cleric Fethullah Gulen and its support for Kurdish militants inSyria which Turkey accuses of being linked to PKK terrorists.
Further diplomatic disputes with the Europeans have nudged the country intothe fold of US nemeses such Russia and Iran.
Ankara and Washington are currently embroiled in a dispute over Russia’splans to buy the S-400 air defense system from Russia, which have promptedthe US to suspend sales of F-35 aircraft to the NATO ally.