Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chair and party spokesman Ömer Çelik on Tuesday said that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the candidate of the People’s Alliance in the next presidential election in 2023, Euronews reported.
Çelik made remarks on Erdoğan’s candidacy after an AKP Central Executive Board meeting on Tuesday.
“There is no doubt that our President is the presidential candidate of the ruling People’s Alliance in the upcoming elections,” Çelik said.
On Monday, former parliamentary speaker and AKP founding member Bülent Arınç told BBC Turkish that the AKP did not yet have a presidential candidate to run in the next elections.
“Only the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli said that ‘our candidate is Erdoğan’. But no AKP official or Erdoğan himself declared a candidate,” Arınç said.
Turkey’s opposition Nation Alliance, which consists of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), centre-right Good Party (İYİP), the Islamist Felicity Party (SP), and the Democratic Party (DP), have yet to announce its presidential candidate.
The Nation Alliance has long urged for snap elections, a call which has gained momentum following the crash of the Turkish lira to record lows last week coupled with soaring inflation.
Ahval