Tutku Şenen
September 18, 2015•Update: September 18, 2015
ANKARA
A change to a three-term rule has seen several heavyweight figures return to run as candidates for Turkey’s Justice and Development (AK) Party ahead of a general election scheduled for November 1.
The three-term rule prevented AK Party members from standing as MPs for more than three consecutive four-year terms.
AK Party Deputy Chairman and former justice minister Bekir Bozdag was among those on the party's 550-strong candidate list which was submitted to Turkey’s Supreme Election Board on Friday.
Political parties had to submit their nominees to the board by Sep. 18; the final list of confirmed candidates will be announced on Sep. 28.
Bozdag told reporters that 24 party members who had already served as parliamentarians for three terms -- including himself, former deputy prime minister Ali Babacan, state minister Besir Atalay, former parliamentary speaker Cemil Cicek and former labor minister Faruk Celik -- had been nominated as candidates.
The three-term rule was changed during the AK Party's 5th Ordinary Congress on Sept. 12, effectively allowing some members to run again after the inconclusive June 7 general election.
Bozdag also said that Tugrul Turkes, who is currently Deputy Prime Minister and resigned from the basic membership of his Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the party's parliamentary group membership early Friday, also took a place in the AK Party list.
On Sept. 5, the MHP's central disciplinary committee said that it had expelled Turkes after he accepted an offer to join the country's caretaker Cabinet in defiance of his party's instructions to do otherwise.
Bozdag said that 312 party members who were nominated and elected as deputies on June 7 were proposed for candidacy again.
He added that 69 AK Party candidates are female.
The June 7 general election saw a stalemate, with no party winning the majority necessary to form a single-party government. The November election rerun was called after the June 7 vote failed to produce a party with a majority and coalition talks proved fruitless.
Turkey is divided into 85 constituencies in 81 provinces, represented by a total of 550 MPs. The election board will print more than 75 million voting papers.
