Erdoğan allegedly to choose ‘surprise names’ as vice-presidents for 2019 elections

Nuray Babacan – ANKARA

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will allegedly appoint names that are not close to the ruling Development and Justice Party (AKP) as his vice-presidents for the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections in a move to embrace a bigger fraction of the society.

The names brought to the foreground include the current leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahçeli and Tansu Çiller, Turkey’s first female prime minister who served between 1993 and 1996.

The AKP’s move came after the party instructed new researchers to determine voters’ priorities in an attempt to win over the rest of the society for the 2019 elections. In recent surveys, the party’s vote was indicated to be around 46-48 percent, below the 50 percent threshold, which puts the presidential candidates into the second round at least. 

Accordingly, the party is undertaking various efforts to exceed 50 percent of the votes in the upcoming elections, and one of the ways to realize this goal is allegedly for Erdoğan’s vice-presidents to be “surprise names.”

The reason why Çiller’s name has been going around is indicated by the former prime minister’s frequent invitations to presidential programs, especially throughout the last periods. But the biggest handicap of this scenario is that in case Çiller is appointed vice-president, the AKP would lose votes from the country’s Kurdish-origin population, according to various comments.

Additionally, in a move to attract young voters to the party, the AKP has also been reported to be appointing “young presidents and young party executives” at local levels.