Erdogan officially starts presidency
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan ushered in the new, executive presidential system he had long campaigned for by putting his son-in-law in charge of the economy and promising a greater overhaul of the country to achieve greater development.
Hours after he was sworn in with sweeping new powers at a ceremony in the capital of Ankara late on Monday, Erdogan named Berat Albayrak as Treasury and Finance Minister. Albayrak, 40, previously served as Energy Minister and, before that, led a company, Reuters reported.
Erdogan has said the powerful executive presidency is vital to driving economic growth and to ensure security after a failed 2016 military coup.
Under the new system, the post of prime minister has been scrapped and the president selects his own cabinet, regulates ministries and can remove civil servants without parliamentary approval.
Erdogan, the most popular leader in recent Turkish history, has now formally become the most powerful leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the republic from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
Just as Ataturk transformed an impoverished nation at the eastern edge of Europe into a secular, Western-facing republic, Erdogan has fought to bring Islamic values back into public life and lift millions out of poverty.
“We are leaving behind the system that has in the past cost our country a heavy price in political and economic chaos,” Erdogan said in an address late on Monday.
In one of three presidential decrees issued in the government’s Official Gazette on Tuesday, it was announced that the president would appoint the central bank governor, deputies and monetary policy committee members for a 4-year period.
It was also announced in the Official Gazette that Erdogan had appointed ground forces commander General Yasar Guler as the new chief of the general staff, replacing General Hulusi Akar, who was appointed Defense Minister in the new government.