Top 10 Outstanding Facts about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan By President.gov.ua. Wikipedia.

Top 10 Outstanding Facts about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was born on February 26, 1954, in Rize, Turkey

He is  the president of Turkey Since 2014 and served as prime minister  for 11 years (2003–14).

He is praised for  revolutionized  the Turkish economy through monumental changes key sectors such as textile, transport ,manufacturing  and energy.

Below are some of the facts that precisely describe Erdogan.

1 Born in the Poor Neighborhood in Kasimpasa, Istanbul 

He was born on 26th February 1954, in Kasimpasa, Istanbul, where his family had moved from Rize province, originally from Adjara, a region in Georgia.

His father was Ahmet Erdogan, who was a captain in the Turkish Coast Guard and his mother was Tenzile Erdogan.

 At the age of 13 years old, his family returned to Istanbul and as a teenager, his father provided him with a weekly allowance of 2.5 Turkish Lira.

He worked as a street vendor by selling postcards, sesame bread rings, and bottles of water to drivers stuck in traffic.

Erdogan also played semi-professional football at a local club. Erdogan is a member of the community of Iskenderpasa, a Turkish Sufistic community of Naqshbaan and in Tariqah.

He was involved in student politics and later entered into City of Istanbul politics.

2 He Attended an Islamic School

Iman Hatip School Photo by Darwinek. Wikipedia.

In 1965, Erdogan graduated from Kasinpas Piyale primary school, later he joined Imam Hatip School, a religious vocational studies school, and graduated in 1973.

Erdogan studied the Quran at an Imam Hatip School, where a quarter of the curriculum involves the study of the Quran, the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and an Arabic language.

He wanted to pursue advanced studies at Maktub-I Mulkiye, but he was not accepted, later he was admitted to Eyup High school and eventually received his high school diploma.

3 He graduated from Marmara University-Aksaray School of Economics and Commercial Science

Erdoğan upon attaining his high school diploma, which was quite elusive due to his Islamic school background, he joined Marmara University in 1981 where  studied Business Administration at the Aksaray School of economics and commercial science.

He also served as a consultant and senior executive in the private sector during September 12 era when political parties were closed down.

4 Erdogan is Married to Emine Gulbarana

Erdoğan family Photo by By Γιώργος Α .Wikicommons.

On 4th July 1978, Erdogan married Emine Gulbarana, and they have two sons and two daughters, Ahmet Burak, Necmettin Bilal, Esra, and Sumeyye. He is also a grandfather.

5 He was elected Mayor of Istanbul between 1994 to 1998

At Marmara University he met Necmettin Erbakan, a veteran Islamist politician, and Erdoğan became his political student, despite a ban in Turkey on religiously based political parties.

In 1994 Erdoğan was elected mayor of Istanbul on the ticket of the Welfare Party. The election of the first-ever Islamist to the mayoralty shook the secularist establishment, but Erdoğan proved to be a competent and canny manager. He yielded to protests against the building of a mosque in the city’s central square but banned the sale of alcoholic beverages in city-owned cafés.

6 Erdogan was jailed for Religious Incitement

In 1998 he was convicted for inciting religious hatred after reciting a poem that compared mosques to barracks, minarets to bayonets, and the faithful to an army. Sentenced to 10 months in prison, Erdoğan resigned as mayor.

He is known to have open affiliation with three known Islamic parties some of which had been banned for threatening Turkish Popular Secularism. They include the National Salvation Party which is an Islamist political party in Turkey, founded on 11th October 1972 as the successor of the banned National Order Party, and the Welfare Party which is also an Islamist political party in Turkey, founded by Ahmet Tekdal, and Necmettin Erbakan in 1983, after their previous parties were banned from politics and the Virtual Party which is an Islamist political party established on 17th December 1997 in Turkey, which was found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court and then it was banned in 2001.

7 He is the Founder of the Justice and Development Party, APK

He started his politics in the Student Association where he led the branch. He later joined the welfare party which was banned.

In 2001, he established the moderate conservative AKP, Justice, and Development Party, which is a political party in Turkey, self-describing as Conservative-democrat.

APK is the largest party in Grand National Assembly, the Turkish national legislature, with 285 out of 6oo seats, having won 42.6% of the votes in the 2018 Turkish parliamentary election.

The AKP is the only party in Turkey with a significant presence in all provinces of Turkey and it has won six consecutive parliamentary elections since the multiparty democracy in 1946.

In 2017, he returned to the AKP leadership following a constitutional referendum in the same year.

He is self-described as a conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and populist policies during his administration

In 2014, He was elected as the 12^th president of turkey and assumed office on 28^th August 2014.

8 He is the 25^th Prime Minister of Turkey

In 2003, Erdogan won a by-election in Siirt and replaced Gul as prime minister, with Gul instead becoming the AKP’s candidate for the presidency.

He served as the prime minister from 14^th march 2003 to 28^th august 2014.

He made reforms in the early years of his tenure as prime minister and granted Turkey the start of EU membership negotiations.

Furthermore, turkey experienced an economic recovery from the economic crisis of 2001 and saw investments in infrastructure including roads, airports, and high speed-train networks.

9 Erdogan has been Accused of Islamizing Turkey and Corruption

A photo of Anti-government Protests. Photo by Selahattin Sönmez. Wikimedia.

In 2013, there were anti-government protests, and his government imposed growing censorship on the press and social media, temporarily restricting access to sites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Wikipedia. 

A US$100 billion corruption scandal in 2013, that involved key people in the Turkish government, led to the arrests of Erdogan’s close allies and incriminated Erdogan. 

10 He Supported the change of the Country Parliamentary to Presidential System

In 2016, a failed military coup d’état attempt took place and resulted in further purges and a temporary state of emergency.

Since then Erdogan’s rule has been marked by increasing authoritarianism, expansionism, states of obtaining power through the military, censorship, and banning of the parties or dissent.

He supported the 2017 referendum which changed Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential System, thus setting for the first time in Turkish history a term limit for the head of government, which is two five years,

The new system of the government formally came into place after the 2018 general election, where Erdogan became an executive president, however, his party lost the majority in the parliament and is currently in coalition with Turkish nationalists.