Erdogan move to block minister’s resignation exposes Turkish power struggle

Source:Financial Times Date:13Apr2020

Those ambitions — and his popularity in rightwing circles — have put him at odds with Mr Erdogan’s son-in-law, the finance minister Berat Albayrak, who is viewed by many within the AKP as the president’s chosen successor. Opinion polls suggest that the interior minister is more popular than Mr Albayrak.

Writing on Twitter on Monday, Mr Soylu said that he was “humbled” by the president’s response to his resignation request.

Yet Selim Koru, a non-resident analyst at the Ankara-based think-tank Tepav, said Mr Erdogan now had a “Soylu problem”.

“Within governments like this, there is only supposed to be one irreplaceable person, not more than one.”