ERKEN HABER - President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement regarding the Presidential Election and the 28th Term Deputy General Election.
Erdoğan signed the Presidential Decree regarding the holding of the elections on 14 May, which should be held on 18 June.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after signing the election decision at the Presidential Complex, said:
My dear nation, esteemed members of the press, I greet you with my most heartfelt feelings. I have just signed the decision to renew the presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May, which should be held on 18 June 2023, with the authority given by Article 116 of our constitution.
Especially after this decision, which will be published in the official newspaper tomorrow, the YSK will start the 2-month election calendar. According to this, I hope our nation will go to the polls to elect the President and deputies on the first Sunday in 2 months, on May 14, 2023.
As it is known, we shared with the public our decision to update the date of the elections as May 14, right after the New Year's Eve. Some of the reasons that led us to take the decision to move the election date forward about a month are as follows; First of all, June 18 was a date that coincided with the university exam calendar, which concerns the future of millions of young people. Again, this date coincided with a period when hundreds of thousands of our citizens, both at home and abroad, went to the blessed lands to perform their pilgrimage. Due to the fact that primary and secondary schools were on vacation just before the election date, millions of our citizens would set off for their hometowns or holiday destinations this year, just like every year. For the reasons led by these, we evaluated that June 18 is not a healthy date to ensure that our nation's will is reflected in the ballot box.
As an alternative, we offered a date of 14 May. We know that this date, which also corresponds to a meaningful anniversary in terms of our democratic past, is well received by our nation. However, the two major earthquakes that our country experienced one after another on February 6 removed the debates about the election and the election date from our agenda. This earthquake, which is described as the disaster of the century, caused loss of life and property in our provinces of Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Adıyaman, Gaziantep, Malatya, Osmaniye, Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Kilis, Adana and Elazığ. Even though the heavy winter conditions in the first days of the earthquake, the damaged infrastructure and the size of the 500-kilometer demolition area made our job very difficult, we rushed to the aid of our people by either finding a way or opening a road. More than 47 thousand people died and more than 115,000 people were injured in the earthquake, which was felt in a wide area that directly affected 14 million citizens living in these 11 provinces.
