ANKARA (HRNW) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday officially set parliamentary and presidential elections for May 14, a month early and just three months after earthquakes that left millions homeless across southern Turkey.
“Our nation will go to the polls to elect its president and parliamentarians on May 14,” Erdogan said in a televised speech after signing off the decision, little more than a month after the quakes killed almost 50,000 people in Turkey.
Erdogan said the elections had been brought forward because the planned date of June 18 date with university exams, summer holidays and travel to the Hajj pilgrimage.
The vote will be Erdogan’s biggest test in his 20 years in power, and decided not only who leads Turkey but how it is governed, where its economy is headed and what role it may play in easing conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East.
On Monday, the six-party main opposition alliance named Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), as its candidate to challenge Erdogan for the presidency.