Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (ˈɛərdəwæn; ɾeˈdʒep tajˈjip ˈæɾdoːan; born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current President of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014 and as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001, leading it to general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before standing down upon his election as President in 2014. Coming from an Islamist political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and liberal economic policies in his administration. Erdoğan played football for Kasımpaşa before being elected in 1994 as the Mayor of Istanbul from the Islamist Welfare Party. He was stripped of his position, banned from political office, and imprisoned for four months for inciting religious hatred. Erdoğan abandoned openly Islamist politics and established the moderate conservative AKP in 2001. Following the AKP's landslide victory in 2002, the party's co-founder Abdullah Gül became Prime Minister, until his government annulled Erdoğan's ban from political office. Erdoğan became Prime Minister in March 2003 after winning a by-election in Siirt. The early years of Erdoğan's premiership saw advances in negotiations for Turkey's membership in the European Union, an economic recovery following a financial crash in 2001 and investments in infrastructure including roads, airports, and a high-speed train network. He also won two successful constitutional referendums in 2007 and 2010. However, his government remained controversial for its close links with Fethullah Gülen and his Gülen Movement, now designated as a terrorist organisation, with which the AKP is accused of orchestrating purges against secular bureaucrats and military officers through the Balyoz and Ergenekon trials. In late 2012, his government began peace negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to end the ongoing PKK insurgency that began in 1978. The ceasefire broke down in 2015, leading to a renewed escalation in conflict. Erdoğan's foreign policy has been described as Neo-Ottoman and has involved attempts to prevent Syrian-Kurdish PYD/YPG forces from gaining ground on the Turkish-Syrian border during the Syrian Civil War. Erdoğan's government has been accused of democratic backsliding and corruption in later years. Starting with the anti-government protests in 2013, his government imposed growing censorship on the press and social media, imposing blocks on sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Wikipedia. This stalled negotiations related to EU membership. A US$100 billion corruption scandal in 2013 led to the arrests of Erdoğan's close allies, and incriminated Erdoğan. Following a souring in relations with Gülen, Erdoğan proceeded to purge his supporters from judicial, bureaucratic and military positions. A failed military coup d'état attempt in July 2016 resulted in further purges and a state of emergency. The government claimed that the coup leaders were linked to Gülen, but he has denied any role in it. As a long standing proponent of changing Turkey's parliamentary system of government into an executive presidency, Erdoğan formed an alliance with the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to establish an executive presidency in 2017, where the changes were accepted in a constitutional referendum. The new system of government formally came into place after the 2018 general election, where Erdoğan and the new AKP-MHP People's Alliance was re-elected. He has since been tackling, but also accused of contributing to, the Turkish currency and debt crisis of 2018. President Erdogan ranked first place in the World's 500 Most Influential Muslims in 2019.