A ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy, Metin Külünk, has said that the switch in Turkey to a presidential system would disable the “bureaucratic oligarchy” in the country and take revenge for the last 200 years.
Külünk, known for his lobbying activities for the AKP, particularly in Europe, told a Turkish daily on Friday that the constitutional amendments bringing an executive presidency to Turkey is an initiative to limit the reign of bureaucratic groups in the country. He claimed that the rule of a bureaucratic privileged class dates back to 1808.
The executive presidency aims to expand the president’s powers to unprecedented levels as the president will be given the right to dissolve Parliament and rule the country by decree for the most part.
In September, the same AKP deputy had argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have been the next target if putschists had succeeded in killing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during July 15’s failed coup attempt, which aimed to push Turkey into the war and division suffered by the Balkan states in the 1990s.
When corruption scandals implicating AKP ministers emerged in December 2013, Külünk had said that people have right to exercise their freedom to sin.