Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country’s next parliamentary and presidential elections will be on May 14, about a month ahead of schedule. Erdogan specified that the decision will be made official on March 10.
Erdogan will run again in the elections to keep his post, which he has held since 2014 (up to that year he had been prime minister continuously since 2003). In the event that no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a second round two weeks after the first, on May 28.
The elections in Turkey will probably have global repercussions: Erdogan is considered one of the most extremist leaders in the Western world and in recent years he has put his allies in NATO – the mutual defense organization of which 30 western countries – maintaining complicit relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Despite having a broad alliance of six opposition parties against him, Erdogan still enjoys some popularity in the country and is favored for re-election.
