Position: Prime Minister
Incumbent: Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Date of Birth: Feb. 26, 1954
Term: Became prime minister in 2003 after his Justice and Development Party, or AK Party, won elections in 2002. Erdogan was re-elected in 2007 and elected for a third time in June 2011.
Key Facts:
-- Erdogan's AK Party is sometimes likened to a Muslim version of Europe's Christian Democrat parties, while critics fear its long-term goal is to roll back Turkey's secularism. Erdogan denies having any such agenda.
-- Voting in the wake of the country's financial crisis of 2000-2001, and angered by the corruption and mismanagement of the 1990s, Turks in the 2002 election rejected parties that had traditionally governed the country. Erdogan's AK Party repaid them by overseeing a time of unprecedented growth.
-- Erdogan has spearheaded Turkey's bid for membership of the European Union, opening formal negotiations in 2005. He also undertook reforms to curb the influence of Turkey's powerful military in order to reduce the risk of coups that have blighted the republic's history.
-- Though conservative on social issues, the AK Party's liberal economic policies and appetite for reform have won over investors. It has won three consecutive terms of single-party rule, and investors have also welcomed what has been, by Turkish standards, a period of political stability.
-- Erdogan's political pedigree is rooted in political Islam. He was a leading member of the Welfare Party, before it was banned in 1998 for violating principles of secularism. He subsequently spent several months in jail for Islamist sedition. He was one of the founders of the AK Party in 2001. Though elected leader of the new party, he was barred from contesting the 2002 general election which brought the AK Party to power. He became prime minister in 2003, when his ally Abdullah Gul, the current president, stepped aside.
-- Erdogan has dominated Turkey's political landscape for the past decade and is widely expected to seek the presidency if he can push through a new constitution that included moving Turkey to a more presidential form of government as in France. Opponents fear Erdogan's domineering style would become even more pronounced if he had presidential powers without a parliament strong enough to rein him in. Currently the president's role is more of a figurehead.
-- Health concerns surfaced last November when the prime minister's office revealed he had surgery on his lower intestine, triggering months of speculation that he was suffering from cancer. Erdogan has dismissed that speculation, and while concerns about his health have subsided, they still linger.
-- The son of a poor sea captain, Erdogan grew up in Istanbul and became the mayor of Europe's biggest city from 1994 to 1998. Raised in an observant Muslim family, he attended a religious school before going on to study business administration at a college that is now part of Istanbul's Marmara University.
(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Jerry Norton, David Cutler and Roger Atwood)
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