Eyes on Erdoğan-Davutoğlu meet amid speculation of resignation
Amid rumors suggesting that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may be planning to resign, eyes are on a State Day meeting between him and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today.
The State Day meeting was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 5, as it has been the case customarily. However, in Erdoğan’s official schedule posted on the early morning of May 4 (around 12:45 a.m.), it was seen that his regular weekly meeting with Davutoğlu was moved to May 4.
It was not yet clear which side initiated to hold the meeting a day earlier.
The meeting has sparked additional interest since it comes after a May 3 speech in which Davutoğlu said he “would turn away from any job position.”
Davutoğlu delivered those remarks while addressing a weekly regular parliamentary group speech, the shortest one among those he has delivered as leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). His May 3 speech came after the AKP’s highest decision-making body, the 50-seat Central Decision and Executive Board (MKYK), ruled to strip him of the authority to appoint provincial officials on April 29.
"I would trample on my ‘nafs’ [ego] if necessary and I would turn down any position that many would consider a mortal could not leave,” Davutoğlu told his party fellows, adding kerosene to the fire of speculation that he was ready to leave his position on the Council of Ministers due to challenge against his leadership from the founding leader of the party, Erdoğan.
The decision by the MKYK to remove Davutoglu’s right to appoint regional party officials has been widely seen as the opening salvo in a conflict to undermine his authority. Current MKYK members were elected at a September party congress in which the president, who the constitution demands must remain impartial, reportedly flexed his muscles to closely shape the party. Erdoğan made his clout felt in the congress by having personally loyal names elected to the MKYK, overshadowing Davutoğlu’s preferences, after the latter’s reelection as AKP leader. At the time, reports circulated before the congress that İzmir deputy Binali Yıldırım, one of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s closest aides, who returned to cabinet as the Transport Minister after the Nov. 1 election, was among the 47 MKYK members who signed in favor of the April 29 decision.
“I wouldn’t allow this pure movement and its pure-hearted staff -the only hope of the oppressed all over the world- to become sad,” Davutoğlu vowed in his May 3 speech, which took only 26 minutes, a significant reduction of his usual hour-and-a-half parliamentary group speeches.
The parliamentary group meeting was followed by a meeting of the Central Executive Board (MYK), the lower body of the ruling AKP.
It was the shortest ever meeting of the MYK, taking around 50 minutes.
According to Hürriyet daily newspaper columnist Abdülkadir Selvi, Davutoğlu was asked during the MYK meeting, “Your remarks were perceived as a farewell speech; is there something like that?”
“I haven’t made my decision yet. I’m still in the decision stage. I’ve been assessing,” Davutoğlu said in response, Selvi wrote, citing by sources from the AKP.
“Tonight is Miraç Kandili [the day of the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent to heaven], we will contemplate. We will recall. We will review ourselves,” Davutoğlu reportedly said, as he also underlined that he would not be involved in any move that would “harm the AKP.”
A member of the MYK, speaking to Selvi after the meeting, said, “Mr. Prime Minister used open-ended expressions.”
According to the AKP’s internal regulations, the right to appoint local party heads originally belonged to the MKYK. However, the right was later given to Erdoğan in 2002, only a year after the party was founded.
The April 29 move came after rumors that Davutoğlu, who took over as AKP head after Erdoğan became president in 2014, did not consider recommendations from the Presidency in recent appointment decisions.
In recent months, the executives of around 15 provincial and district party bodies have been reshuffled.
During the May 3 meeting of the MYK, Davutoğlu asked Mustafa Ataş, the AKP’s deputy chair in charge of party organization, whom Davutoğlu uses to appoint district and provincial heads of the party, gathered with provincial chairs of the party organization to brief the MYK about the reasons behind the appointments, Hürriyet daily newspaper’s Parliament Bureau Chief Nuray Babacan wrote in an article published on May 4.
Some party sources said Davutoğlu’s speech at the parliamentary group meeting was marked by “sadness and resentment,” a sign that “sustaining the relationship between Davutoğlu and Erdoğan has become more difficult.” Developments may lead to an extraordinary congress where leadership would be changed, Babacan also wrote. Some other party sources, however, said “Ongoing problems between the two leaders have become visible from time to time, but have been overcome through mutual steps,” the journalist said.
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