Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power for twenty years, began his third term as president on Saturday June 3 in heavy rain that fell on Ankara. The 69-year-old head of state, re-elected on May 28 with 52% of the vote, was sworn in before parliament for a new five-year term and promised "to assume his duty impartially".
He was then to meditate at the mausoleum of the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, before protocol ceremonies at the presidential palace and a large dinner in the evening, after which he will announce the composition of his government.
"As President, I swear to protect the existence and independence of the state, the integrity of the homeland, the unconditional sovereignty of the nation, the rule of law [and] the principle of a republic secular” as conceived by Atatürk, the “father of the Turks”, said the president known for defending Islamo-conservative positions.
The long-awaited appointment of ministers
The list of ministers which will be announced in the evening, after the festivities, should give an idea of the orientations adopted by the Head of State to redress the economy in crisis. For this arduous task, the name of a recognized expert, Mehmet Simsek, has been circulating insistently for several days.
Former Minister of Finance (2009-2015) then Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy (until 2018), Mr. Simsek, 56, a former economist at the American bank Merrill Lynch, would be responsible for restoring a little orthodoxy in order to restore investor confidence.
In addition to inflation at more than 40%, encouraged by the steady decline in interest rates, the national currency was in free fall to more than 20.88 Turkish liras for the dollar on Friday (22.5 for the euro) despite billions dollars sunk during the campaign to delay its sinking.
Sweden's entry into NATO
Another burning issue is Sweden's entry into the Atlantic Alliance, blocked for thirteen months by a Turkish veto. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg – present at the investiture on Saturday – would like to achieve this before a summit of the Organization in Vilnius scheduled for July. “Clear message to our Swedish friends! Respect your commitments (…) and take concrete measures in the fight against terrorism. The rest will follow,” current Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu tweeted Thursday evening.
Despite an amended Constitution and a new anti-terrorism law, Ankara still blames Sweden for harboring Kurdish refugees whom it calls "terrorists". Stockholm also authorized a demonstration on Sunday on the theme "No to NATO, no Erdogan laws in Sweden", organized in particular by associations supporting Kurdish armed groups in Syria.
More than twenty Heads of State and Government and forty-five foreign ministers are expected to attend the ceremonies which will end with a reception at the gigantic presidential palace built by the Head of State on a hill away from the center of the capital.
Presence of usual allies
Among the crowd of traditional allies, the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, will take his place alongside the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, and the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Viktor Orban, and Qatar, Mohammed Ben Abderrahmane Al Thani, who were among the first to congratulate him on his re-election.
Armenia and Turkey have never officially established diplomatic relations and their common border has been closed since the 1990s, but a rapprochement has been initiated since the beginning of 2022, despite Ankara's open support for Baku on the issue. of Nagorno-Karabakh which opposes Yerevan to Azerbaijan.
Mr. Erdogan, forced for the first time in a second round, obtained 52.18% of the votes against 47.82% for his opponent, the social democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, according to the official results published Thursday, after a bitter campaign that leaves the country polarized between the two camps.
The Parliament, elected on May 14 at the same time as the first round of the presidential election was held, took up residence on Friday in Ankara: the president's AKP party and its allies hold the majority of the 600 seats there.
