Sedat Ergin: First days at the Prime Ministry

“It has been two months since Tayyip Erdogan took over the prime ministry. This is quite a short period of time, which does not allow us to derive general judgments about the mood that Erdogan has brought to the prime ministry. He gave the image of a self-controlled prime minister, closing himself into the office. This controlled attitude draws attention especially in his communication with the public opinion and relations with media. He gave THE necessary messages to his deputies in the group meetings of his party and to the public opinion mostly in his addresses to the nation or compulsory protocol statements. Therefore, he is quite away from the habit of the majority of the former prime ministers to open themselves to the press. This reserved and distanced manner protects him from falling into polemics before the public opinion and suppresses his fighter side. “In his bid for the prime ministry, his main reference was his experience in the administration of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. According to him, his successful administration of a big and difficult city like Istanbul was his main support in administrating Turkey. But, now he is having a test to prove this opinion in the prime ministry. He has to coordinate a harmonious work between the state institutions. Leaving aside the foreign affairs dossiers on Cyprus and Turco-U.S. relations and economic issues, he must also keep the party structure intact.“Now the most difficult test for  Prime Minister Erdogan is to develop a basic political view, which will view  all these issues from above and then relate them with each other.”�