2nd Justice and Development Party Extraordinary Congress

Justice and Development Party leadership election, 2016
Turkey
22 May 2016
Incumbent Leader

Ahmet Davutoğlu
AK Party

The 2nd Justice and Development Party Extraordinary Congress will be a party convention of the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey due to be held on 22 May 2016. The congress, announced on 4 May 2016, had been long speculated by politicians and political commentators who had observed a severe deterioration in relations between Prime Minister and incumbent AKP leader Ahmet Davutoğlu and the AKP's founder and former leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[1]

Transport and Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım is expected to run for the leadership as a pro-Erdoğan candidate. Yıldırım had been collecting signatures to launch a leadership bid in time for the last Ordinary Congress of 2015, ceasing only when Davutoğlu and Erdoğan agreed on a joint list of Central Executive Decision Board candidates days before the congress took place. It is currently unknown if Davutoğlu, or any other candidate critical of Erdoğan, will stand for election.[2]

Potential candidates

Pro-Erdoğan candidates

Media reports have indicated that the frontrunner would be handpicked by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Nine potential candidates have been identified by political commentators.[3][4][5]

Erdoğan-critical candidates

It has been reported that if the inner-party opposition that is critical to Erdoğan's dominance is unhappy with the emerging candidate, they would field their own candidate. Their most likely candidate is expected to be Ali Babacan, who is internationally recognised for his economic policies while serving as a government minister.[6]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, May 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.