ANKARA
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) member of parliament and former presidential candidate, submitted Wednesday his application to run for Turkey's parliament speaker.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a former diplomat and ex-Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), ran against current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's first presidential election last year.
The Republican People's Party (CHP) has also announced Wednesday that its former leader Deniz Baykal, acting Parliament Speaker until the election, was also candidate for the June 30 election.
Earlier this week, pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) named Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, a former deputy chairman of the AK Party, as its candidate for parliament speaker.
Candidates have to submit their applications by June 28.
According to the Turkish constitution, the election of the speaker shall be conducted via secret ballot.
The election on June 30 requires a two-thirds majority among MPs. Should this majority not be recahed afetr two attempst, a third requiring an absolute majority is be held on July 1.
If this cannot be obtained, a fourth vote shall be held on the same day in a run-off between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the third.
