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Turkey’s presidential term to be 5 years: PM Yıldırım

Yıldırım says AK Party also plans to issue 5-year terms for deputies

Ersin Çelik
09:00 - 23/10/2016 Pazar
Update: 09:15 - 23/10/2016 Pazar
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Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said Saturday that the country's presidential term will be five years in a new planed Constitution.



Yıldırım's remarks came during an interview on state-run broadcaster TRT.



"We think that the president will be elected for a five-year term in (the presidential) system," Yildirim said.



Constitutional changes, in particular, the call for a presidential system, has been on the political agenda since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the former prime minister and current AK Party leader, was elected president in August 2014.



That election was the first in which a Turkish president was chosen directly by popular vote.



Yıldırım praised the leader of Turkey's opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for his support of a referendum on a proposed presidential system.



"Mr. Devlet Bahçeli sometimes makes this kind of breakthrough. This breakthrough opens every time the doors for the solution of a country's issues becomes an insolvable issue."



Bahçeli has called for a referendum to settle the debate on Turkey's Constitution and presidential system.



"The MHP is on the side of the continuation of [Turkey's] parliamentary system while it is revised and reformed," he said earlier this week.



Yıldırım also commented on the parliamentary election in the new Constitution, saying deputies could also be elected to five-year terms.



"We have not got inside the content, but we think that the parliamentary elections should be for five-year terms."



Deputies currently serve four-year terms.









#Devlet Bahceli
#Tukish PM Binali Yildirim
#presidential system
8 yıl önce