Erdogan caught off guard in latest political crisis
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may opt for early elections to ride out the corruption storm.
Nobody thought Turkey’s powerful Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be caught so off guard — not after last summer’s Gezi Park protests — as he apparently was before the major graft probe, which involves four of his ministers, including the minister of interior and his sons.
Yet, he was. As the police raided houses and offices in an operation that so far included more than 50 people and a wave of detentions, Erdogan — kept out of the loop over the inquiry — is now facing his most serious political challenge ever.
On Dec. 17, the financial crime unit of the Istanbul Police Department carried out dawn raids in Istanbul and Ankara.
The sons of Interior Minister Muammer Guler, Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan and Urban Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar were among those detained, along with Istanbul's Fatih district Mayor Mustafa Demir, construction mogul Ali Agaglu, Halkbank General Manager Suleyman Aslan, Iranian-Azerbaijani businessman Reza Zerrab and some bureaucrats from the Environment and Economy Ministries.
