Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fired his trade minister in an attempt to mitigate the damage from growing allegations of widespread nepotism in the government.
Turkish Trade Minister faces accusations of nepotism
Ruhsar Pekcan was fired on Wednesday with a midnight decree by Erdogan after allegedly favoring her husband’s company on government contracts. The president named Mehmet Mus, a parliamentary whip from his ruling AK party, as her replacement.
The abrupt deposition of the chief of trade suggests that Erdogan did not want to waste time covering up another torrent of dissatisfaction with the government’s management of the economy, sent to his son-in-law by his son-in-law. to step down in November. The president’s approval ratings fell to lows last seen in 2019, when his ruling party lost municipal races in Turkey’s biggest cities.
Pekcan became a liability after the OdaTV website reported over the weekend that the Department of Commerce had purchased disinfectants worth 9 million liras ($ 929,000) from two companies owned by her husband.
The former minister on Tuesday denied in a statement that the ministry was buying half a million lira from her husband’s company because it had submitted the lowest bids.
Her departure is not expected to result in an imminent shift in policy on tariffs and bilateral investment agreements.
Mini Rearrange
The president took advantage of Pekcan’s resignation to make other staff changes in the cabinet. He divided the Ministry of Family and Labor in two, replacing the outgoing minister, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk. Erdogan appointed Derya Yanik, a member of his party’s Istanbul branch and currently the only female member of the government, as minister of family. Vedat Bilgin, a former AK Party legislator and adviser to the President, was appointed Labor Minister.
– With the help of Selcan Hacaoglu and Cagan Koc
(Updates with more details from the first paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected a ministry’s name in the fourth paragraph.)