Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. From 2003 to 2014, he was Turkey's prime minister. From 1994 to 1998, he was Istanbul's mayor. Prior to being forced to resign after being elected president in 2014, he created the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001 and guided it to victory in the general elections of 2002, 2007, and 2011. Later, after the 2017 constitutional referendum, he rejoined the AKP leadership. He has supported socially conservative and populist initiatives during his administration while coming from an Islamist political background and identifying as a conservative democrat.

In order to get involved in politics, Erdoğan joined the National Turkish Student Union in 1976, which was an anti-communist organization. He was elevated to chair of the party's Istanbul youth chapter after taking the helm of the Beyolu branch of the Islamist National Salvation Party (MSP) in the same year.

He held this position until 1980, and in the years that followed the military takeover in 1980, when political parties were banned, he worked as a top executive and consultant in the private sector. The majority of Necmettin Erbakan's supporters joined the Islamist Welfare Party in 1983, and Erdoğan did the same. In 1984, he was elected to lead the party's Beyolu district, and in 1985, he was elected to lead the Istanbul city branch.