Turkey’s President Erdogan calls snap election in June

TIL Desk/World/Ankara/ Turkey will hold snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24, brought forward by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from November 2019. He has run Turkey since 2002 and will seek five more years with beefed up powers approved in a referendum last year.

The idea of an early poll was initially proposed by nationalist allies. Erdogan said in a televised speech the country needed the new election to rid it of “the diseases of the old system”.

“Developments in Syria and elsewhere have made it urgent to switch to the new executive system in order to take steps for our country’s future in a stronger way,” the president said in a live broadcast.

Erdogan said he had made the decision after speaking to the head of the nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, who is expected to form an alliance with Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in the parliamentary polls.