Turkey's Parliament Grants Confidence Vote to New Prime Minister

On Sunday, June 9, Turkey's Parliament granted a confidence vote to Binali Yildirim with more than two-thirds of the votes, officially making this close ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan the Prime Minister after taking over the leadership of the ruling party. According to Ismail Kahraman, the Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Yildirim received 315 votes in favor from Parliament members, while only 138 voted against him. In a brief speech following the confidence vote, Yildirim described the new Turkish cabinet as the 'government of 79 million' and promised to advance democracy in the country. The new Prime Minister had previously stated that constitutional changes aimed at increasing presidential powers would be a top priority for his government. This issue had caused a rift between former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Erdogan, leading to Davutoglu's resignation, and has also elicited reactions from opposition parties. According to AFP, Lunt Gok from the Republican People's Party stated earlier last week that the party opposes increasing presidential powers as 'this country should not fall victim to the ambitions of one individual.' The news agency writes that the ruling party is now seeking minor amendments to the constitution that would allow Erdogan to take sides with the ruling party instead of being a 'neutral president.' Meanwhile, less than 10 days ago, the Turkish Parliament passed a bill to lift parliamentary immunity for several representatives, paving the way for legal action against 138 parliament members, 101 of whom belong to opposition parties. Reuters reported at that time that this action would pressure Kurdish parliament members and facilitate greater power concentration in Erdogan's hands. Currently, under the Turkish constitution, parliament members enjoy judicial immunity, and changing this law would open the way for the prosecution of those members with legal cases against them. This number includes 138 individuals, of whom 101 belong to opposition parties, namely the Peoples' Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Turkey. The Peoples' Democratic Party, which supports the Kurds, has stated that with this law change, more than 59 of its parliament members may be imprisoned simply for expressing their views.