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Bloomberg
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday took back control of the ruling party he founded, a step that gives the nation’s most powerful man additional authority to appoint loyalists to parliament lists and party posts across the nation.
Just a month after a vote approved transferring Turkey’s center of political power to the presidency from parliament, the AK Party’s leadership and tens of thousands of party faithful convened to anoint Erdogan at an extraordinary congress in Ankara. The referendum’s result allowed the president, until then constitutionally an impartial head of state, to be a member or leader of a political party. Erdogan, 63, who has already defanged Turkey’s once-influential military, neutralized the opposition and subordinated the press, will now wipe out any vestiges of dissent within the ruling party. A new set of party regulations includes stiffer penalties for breaking discipline, and expulsion for anyone who acts in a way perceived as serving the purposes of another party, Hurriyet newspaper reported.
The congress took place under extraordinary security measures, amid a state of emergency that’s been in place since the aftermath of coup attempt. Some 60,000 people were brought into Ankara by bus from outside the city, Hurriyet reported. Security forces could be seen using pepper spray against masses of supporters who had congregated outside the arena and were fighting to get closer.