Turkey floats earlier 2028 vote that would clear way for Erdogan to run again

Turkey will probably hold its 2028 elections earlier than expected, a presidential adviser says, a move which would allow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to sidestep constitutional limits and run again for office.

The next presidential and parliamentary votes are currently scheduled to take place in May that year. “It is now almost clear that the 2028 elections would be held in March or April,” Erdogan’s adviser, Mehmet Ucum, tells reporters in Ankara.

Ucum does not spell out what that means for the president’s plans. But it is the closest a senior figure has come to publicly backing a proposal floated by Erdogan’s allies to reschedule the vote to let him run one more time.

Erdogan has ruled Turkey for nearly 23 years, first as prime minister and then as president.

A 2017 ​referendum brought in a new executive presidency system that allowed Erdogan to be re-elected as president two more times in 2018 and 2023.

Though that new system set a two-term limit, the constitution would allow him to run again if parliament calls an election early, before he has served the whole of his last five-year term.

Turkey’s opposition has also called for an early vote — but say they want it to give them a chance to challenge Erdogan’s economic policies rather than to give him another chance to run.

“Reducing the issue to ‘how can we get Tayyip Erdogan re-elected as president’ is, from our point of view, simply unacceptable,” main opposition leader Ozgur Ozel said last week.