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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began Monday a new five-year term with strengthened powers, and unveiled a tight government in which he entrusted his son-in-law with the key position of Finance.
M. Erdogan, 64, was sworn in, pledging to uphold the principles of secular Turkey founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and to carry out his task in an "impartial" manner.
In power since 2003, first as prime minister then president, Erdogan was re-elected on June 24, winning the presidential election in the first round with 52.6% of the vote, far ahead of his competitors.
After swearing, M Erdogan laid a wreath at the Atatürk Mausoleum before presiding over a ceremony at the presidential palace, ushering in a new era in Turkey's modern history with the transition to the presidential system, under a constitutional revision adopted by referendum with a narrow margin in April 2017.
Welcoming "a new beginning" for Turkey, he promised, in an apparent attempt to appease an extremely polarized society, to serve all Turks.
" I am not only the president of those who voted for me, but of all 81 million "Turks, he said.
– His son-in-law –
In the evening, he has unveiled a new cabinet of sixteen ministers (against 26 currently), the most prominent of which is his son-in-law Berat Albayrak, who has been entrusted with the key finance portfolio.
The Ministry of Defense has been awarded the Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar. The outgoing diplomat Mevlut Cavusoglu was re-elected.
Married to Mr. Erdogan's eldest daughter, Esra, Mr. Albayrak, 40, who since 2015 had held the post of Minister of Energy, experienced last years an irresistible rise.
His appointment to finance comes in a difficult economic context with high inflation, a sharp devaluation of the currency and a large current account deficit, despite solid growth.
The markets, which fear Erdogan's pressure on the central bank, seem to have been unhappy with Albayrak's appointment to finance, with the Turkish lira dropping 3.5 percent in the evening to trade at TRY 4.7. one dollar.
In addition to the ministers, Erdogan appointed a technocrat who had previously headed the Turkish Emergency Management Agency (Afad) as Vice President Fuat Oktay.
Mr. Erdogan's accession to this "hyperp residence "intervenes almost two years after an attempted coup on 15 July 2016, led by factious soldiers and followed by large purges including in the armed forces, police and administrations, with arrest or the firing of tens of thousands of people.
The latest wave of purges, announced Sunday, affected more than 18,000 people, mostly soldiers and police, who were sacked by a decree-law presented as the last under the state of emergency established in the aftermath of the failed coup
– "Institutionalized Autocracy" –
In the new system, the post of prime minister, occupied by Binali Yildirim, was abolished, and the head of the The State now holds the entire executive power and may promulgate decrees.
It will also appoint six of the thirteen members of the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK), to designate and remove the staff of the system. Judicial me.
"Most of the powers will be concentrated in his hands, there will be prime minister and almost none of the procedures of checks and balances of a liberal democracy. In other words, Turkey will be an institutionalized autocracy, "says Marc Pierini, a researcher at the Carnegie Europe Institute.
In the legislative elections held at the same time as the presidential election, the Islamic-conservative party of M Erdogan, the AKP, won 295 seats out of 600 and controls parliament only through its alliance with the ultra-nationalists of the MHP, which has 49 elected members.
Many experts fear that this alliance will lead to a hardening of the Erdogan's policy, particularly on the Kurdish question.
Foreign leaders, such as Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro and Sudanese Omar al-Bashir or Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, attended the ceremony, as well as the Bulgarian President Roumen Radev and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
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