Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s Prime Minister, Is Expected to Be Replaced

By TIM ARANGO and CEYLAN YEGINSUMAY 4, 2016


The New York Times

ISTANBUL — The Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will soon leave office, a government official said. His departure is occurring amid a disagreement between the two men over Mr. Erdogan’s drive for more power.

The two leaders met on Wednesday night, according to the Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that had not been announced publicly. “It’s unlikely that Davutoglu will run for leadership again,” he said.



The prime minister is expected to hold a news conference on Thursday after a meeting with officials of the governing Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., according to Turkish news reports, which also said that Mr. Davutoglu was likely to step aside after a coming special party congress.

The leadership change atop the Islamist party comes as the country is facing multiple challenges, including a war with Kurdish militants, terrorist attacks by Islamic State fighters, and the arrival of millions of Syrian refugees. The shuffle clears the way for Mr. Erdogan, who critics say has become increasingly authoritarian, to consolidate even more authority.

Under Turkey’s Constitution, the prime minister is the most powerful official, and the president, although he has some genuine powers, is a largely ceremonial figure. But Mr. Erdogan has not been like previous Turkish presidents, and there has been little doubt that he is the country’s pre-eminent political figure.

Mr. Davutoglu, who became prime minister in 2014, after Mr. Erdogan was elected president, had long been seen as subservient to Mr. Erdogan.

But simmering tensions between them boiled over this week, leading to speculation in the Turkish news media about a rift. The tensions apparently reached a breaking point last week, after party officials stripped Mr. Davutoglu of his power to choose provincial party leaders.

“Even with a person as compliant as Davutoglu, the relationship didn’t work,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and the chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, a research organization here.

In public, Mr. Davutoglu has sought mostly to play the role of party loyalist and devotee to Mr. Erdogan, but analysts say the two men have privately differed on several issues.

Mr. Davutoglu was said to be resistant to Mr. Erdogan’s long-held ambition to rewrite Turkey’s Constitution and establish an executive presidency.

Recently, Mr. Davutoglu had suggested he was willing to return to peace negotiations to end a long war — which resumed in earnest last year — with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or P.K.K., while Mr. Erdogan has appeared more hawkish.

The two leaders also seemed to differ on monetary policy, with Mr. Davutoglu supporting the independence of the central bank, and Mr. Erdogan seeking to intervene for lower interest rates.

In choosing to step down as the leader of the A.K.P., Mr. Davutoglu will clear the way for Mr. Erdogan to pick a new party boss who will then become prime minister.

“The new elected prime minister’s main mission will be to drive forward the presidential agenda,” Mr. Ulgen said.

But even with a new prime minister, it will not be so easy for Mr. Erdogan to alter the Constitution as he wants. The A.K.P., which has been in power for more than a decade, with Mr. Erdogan the prime minister for much of that time, does not have enough seats in Parliament to approve the changes on its own or call a national referendum on a new constitution. Most opinion polls show the Turkish public opposes Mr. Erdogan’s proposed presidential system.

Mr. Erdogan rose to power in 2003, and the A.K.P. won several national elections. But last June, the party lost its parliamentary majority and the Kurdish political party won seats in Parliament for the first time.

That is when war resumed between the Turkish state and the Kurdish P.K.K., which seemed eager to return to arms. Critics of Mr. Erdogan said he sought to use the conflict as a political strategy to regain nationalist votes.

Indeed, after failed coalition talks with opposition parties last summer, Mr. Erdogan called for new elections, and the party regained its majority in November.

With Mr. Erdogan’s not having enough support to amend the Constitution, analysts have predicted that with a new prime minister, he could move to hold early elections in a bid to amass more seats in Parliament.