Recep Tayyip Erdogan swore in a new presidential term in front of Parliament yesterday, Saturday, with which he will complete a quarter of a century at the head of Turkey. A historical milestone that, however, does not allow him to rewrite history, as evidenced by his obligatory visit to Atatürk’s mausoleum and his no less obligatory secularist vote in front of the Chamber.
After that, a grand investiture ceremony awaited him in the elegant presidential palace he had built in Ankara. Inside, due to the rain, 21 presidents and 13 prime ministers were waiting for him, most of them from the Balkan, African and Central Asian republics, where Turkish influence is considerable.
After the gala dinner, the announcement of the new cabinet of ministers was expected, which will give clues about the economic and political direction of the republic, which will turn a century this 2023.
Among those invited to the investiture was the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who maintains an excellent personal relationship with Erdogan.
The Turkish head of state and government has also managed to reunite his Azerbaijani friend, Ilham Aliyev, with his Armenian counterpart, Nikol Pashinyan, despite the fact that neither Turkey nor Azerbaijan maintain diplomatic relations with Armenia.
They were also supposed to be there, according to the Turkish media, the first two presidents who congratulated Erdogan on Sunday’s victory over Kemal Kilicdaroglu. However, it seems that Emir Al-Thani of Qatar finally delegated the ballot to a brother. There was more interest in seeing the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán. Hungary and Turkey are the only stumbling blocks for Sweden to join NATO. Symbolically, the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, went to do his homework.
The Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlüt Çavusoglu – whose continuity was in doubt yesterday – has recommended “the Swedish friends” to “fulfill their commitments and everything will be fine”. This Sunday, Stockholm will experience a demonstration against joining NATO organized by the Kurdish political exile, who fears becoming a currency.
This weekend, Ankara received other relief leaders, such as the South African Cyril Ramaphosa or the Pakistani Shehbaz Sharif. In an ecumenical gesture that is already traditional, on one side was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, and on the other, the Muslim cleric who presides over the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Next to the latter, the footballer Mesut Özil, a declared admirer of Erdogan (as, on the other hand, two out of three Turkish immigrants in Germany, who vote to the left in the Bundestag).
Erdogan overlaid it with a plummy but rarely conciliatory speech. In line with other détente movements between the Black Sea and the Arabian Sea, which contrast with trench warfare in the northern Black Sea.
Erdogan asked “civil society” – with 48% of the votes, but with a much larger percentage of the national income – “to reconcile with the national will”. “Peace at home, peace in the world,” he concluded, using the words of Mustafa Kemal.
The day before, in the chamber, the defeated Kiliçdaroglu observed the session from the side, as he is not a member of parliament. Which, in the absence of immunity, could complicate his life, since he has several open cases “for insulting the head of state”.
On the other hand, a member of parliament elected by the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TIP), Can Atalay, could not collect his minutes because he is in prison. Meanwhile, the jailed leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP announced this week that he was withdrawing from politics, showing disagreements with his party’s line.
Yesterday, outside the halls, it was not only raining, but also the lira, which was at a minimum on Friday. For this reason, the most anticipated announcement after dessert was the possible return of the former head of Finance, Mehmet Simsek. According to London and New York – where he trained as a banker – an Orthodox able to make the sun rise.
As the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, he sounded like someone else given to the shadows. The super-spy of Kurdish origin Hakan Fidan, director of MIT, key to the failure of the 2016 coup.
