Conservative competition for Erdoğan's AKP
Ali Babacan, former Turkish deputy prime minister for economic and financial affairs, told the daily paper Karar on Tuesday that he plans to establish a new party to challenge President Erdoğan's ruling AKP. Is Erdoğan's rule coming to an end?
Babacan knows what he wants
Ahmet Taşgetiren of the conservative newspaper Karar is one of the two journalists who conducted the interview with Babacan. He describes his impressions:
“I must stress that I have seen self-confidence. I must stress that he is well prepared. I must stress that he is being very rigorous, and that he intends to live by this principle of rigour. ... The person in front of us was not naive. There was no hesitation. This was not a person who talks only about the economy. This was a person who seemed to now feel the need to focus on other areas.”
Bad news for the president
The pressure on Erdoğan is growing, both from his own ranks and from the opposition, Yetkin Report writes:
“After Ahmet Davutoğlu's move, this is the second sign of rebellion coming from the team that brought Erdoğan to his current position. A recent poll by Avrasya [an opinion research institute] reported that the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) is surpassing the AKP in popularity for the first time. It also showed that Babacan could attract around 5 percent of the AKP votes. This would be bad news for Erdoğan.”