“For me, this is a final. With the authority the law confers to me, this election is my last,” Erdogan said in a surprising statement on Friday at a youth foundation in Istanbul.
Former Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on X that in case the Turkish parliament decides “to renew the elections,” Erdogan has the “constitutional right” to run for another term in office.
“According to this provision of the Constitution, if the Grand National Assembly of Turkey [Turkish parliament] decides to renew the elections, it is the constitutional right of our President, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to run for President for the third time,” Bozdag said.
The constitutional provision Bozdag refers to is Article 116/3 of the Turkish constitution which states “If the Assembly [parliament] decides to renew the elections during the second term of the President of the Republic, he/she may once again be a candidate.”
Erdogan is the only president in Turkish history elected directly through a public vote and has served three terms in the post. His first term came after winning the 2014 election. Following a 2017 referendum on amendments to several constitutional articles that changed the country’s system from parliamentary to presidential, he won a third presidential term.
Another Erdogan run for office would mark his fourth presidential term. Bozdag in his statement considered that his first term had begun following the 2017 referendum, despite having already served from 2014 to 2018.
Erdogan was previously prime minister for 11 years and before that was mayor of Istanbul.
In this final election that he will contest, Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) hope to regain Istanbul and Ankara which they lost to the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2019.