TURK

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Born on February 26 1954 re-elected as Turkiye [Turkey] President in a tightly contested Election securing 52.2% votes against Kemal Kilicdaroglu led opposition alliance who secured 47.8% in a runoff election held on Sunday .The run-off was needed because in the first round no one has attained clear majority of 50%  .Erdogan’s AKP had secured 323 Seats out of 600 seats in the parliament .This can be described as Historic victory as Erdogan’s conservative policies got upper hand  against a more liberal Six party opposition led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu .

The Turkish president’s long road to political dominance began with his election as Istanbul Mayor in 1994 .The Secularist Elite who at that time dominated Turkey’s politics and feared the rise of Erdogan’s religious conservatism banned him from politics through a court decision that saw him imprisoned for four months over inciting religious hatred in a speech. This sentence in fact only bolstered Erdogans support with thousands of his supporters taking to the streets in protest. Erdogan has changed the Turkish republic to Islamic nation from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who had converted mosques to museums during his reign. He formed justice and development party AKP  and went on to become the prime minister and later president .His regime allowed women to wear scarves and to flaunt Islamic symbols in public .In spite of natural calamities like earthquake which ravaged turkey and rising inflation people restored faith in Erdogan. He was at the helm for the past twenty years and he got mandate for another five years and since he took over turkey has grown as a nation. In a polarised verdict Islamic nationalism is going to stay in turkey and Erdogan stated that it’s a victory of their Democracy.  Erdogan was a former professional football player The significance of this victory is that it happened  in the 100th year of the abolition of  Ottoman caliphate .