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Further Reading

The President

1	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk	1923	1938
2	Issmet Ionönü	1938	1950
3	Celal Bayar	1950	1960
4	Cemal Gürsel	1960	1966
5	Cevdet Sunay	1966	1973
6	Fahri Korutürk	1973	1980
7	Kenan Evren	1980	1989
8	Turgut Özal	1989	1993
9	Süleyman Demirel	1993	2000
10	Ahmet Necdet Sezer	2000	2007
11	Abdullah Gül	2007

The presidency's powers are not precisely defined in practice, and the president's influence depends on his personality and political weight. The President of the Republic is the Head of the State. He/she represents the Republic of Turkey and the unity of the Turkish nation. Until 2007 the President was elected for a seven-year term by a two-thirds majority of the full membership of the TGNA. Recent constitutional amendments, accepted through a nation-wide referendum on 21 October 2007, made the President potentially even more powerful by introducing the principle of 'popular election of the President'.

The time of the next presidential election was subject to heated discussions. As the term of the President was reduced to 5 years, some argue that Abdullah Gül's term ends in 2012. Others point out that Gül was elected when the term of the President was still 7 years; in this line of thought the next presidential election should be held in 2014. Turkish citizens of at least forty years in age can be elected President by the TGNA's secret ballot process. They can be either deputies who have received a higher education or those who are qualified to be elected as a deputy. A President cannot be elected for a second term in office.

The President of the Republic has functions and authority related to the legislative, executive and judicial fields. His/her functions in the legislative fields are to convene the TGNA when necessary, to publish laws and when deemed necessary, to send them back to the Parliament for discussion, to hold a referendum in Constitutional amendments when he/she considers it necessary, to file suit with the Constitutional Court claiming a violation of Constitutional law, to issue decrees with the power of law and regulate the internal workings of the Parliament and to decide when new TGNA elections are necessary.

The executive duties of the President are: to appoint or accept the resignation of the Prime Minister, to appoint or dismiss Ministers in the event that he deems it necessary, to chair meetings of the Council of Ministers or summon the Council to meet under his chairmanship, to appoint accredited envoys to represent the Turkish State abroad and receive representatives of foreign states, to ratify and publish international agreements, to proclaim martial law or impose a state of emergency by a decree to be decided by the Council of Ministers meeting under his chairmanship, and to issue decrees with the power of law, to approve decrees as signatory, to commute or pardon the sentences of certain convicts on the grounds of old age, chronic illness or infirmity, to appoint the members and President of the State Auditory Council, to conduct investigations, enquires and research through the State Auditory Council, to select the members of the Higher Education Council, and to appoint University Chancellors.

The President of the Republic acts as the Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish Armed Forces, appoints the Chief of General Staff, convenes the National Security Council and chairs meetings of the Council. Duties and authority of the President related to the judiciary are to appoint: members of the Constitutional Court, one fourth of the members of the Supreme Court of Appeals, members of the Supreme Military Appeals Tribunal, members of the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors. No appeal may be made to any legal body, including the Constitutional Court, against decrees and presidential orders signed directly by the President of the Republic. The President of the Republic may be impeached for high treason.

Since the Turkish president holds more powers than a classical parliamentary president, Turkey has experienced 'cohabitation-like' situations in the past. Both 'partisan' and 'guardian' presidents confronted the parliamentary majority and the Prime Minister, backed by the latter, as in the cases of 'Özal vs. Evren'; 'Demirel vs. Özal'; 'Erdoðan vs. Sezer'. Even those periods in which the President and the Prime Minister were from the same party (Yýlmaz vs. Özal) or shared the same world view (Ecevit vs. Sezer), saw implacable struggles between these actors. The principle of popular election of the President could exacerbate the situation in the long run. The adoption of the principle of popular election of the president was not part of a well thought-out and well-designed constitutional engineering scheme; rather, it was a reaction to an escalating crisis concerning the election of the President by Parliament.