Binali Yıldırım. The last prime minister before the country shifted to the Turkish-model presidential system. Last seen in New York, at the UN General Assembly as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the chamber. Yıldırım could not hold back tears during Erdoğan’s speech, which took aim at Israel and defended Palestine. And when Erdoğan recited a poem by Sezai Karakoç, a beloved figure among Turkish conservatives, Yıldırım wept openly.
42 YEARS TOGETHER
Yıldırım and Erdoğan go back a long way. When Erdoğan was elected mayor of Istanbul, Yıldırım was appointed head of the city’s ferry boat company. From 1994 to this day, the pair have been side-by-side. Over those years, Yıldırım has held some of the country’s highest offices: minister, prime minister and speaker of parliament. Erdoğan nominated him as a candidate for mayor of Izmir, but he lost. Later, Yıldırım was nominated for mayor of Istanbul despite not wanting to run; Ekrem İmamoğlu won.
In his first months as prime minister, Yıldırım was confronted by the July 15 coup attempt. Unable to reach either the president or the head of the National Intelligence Organization, that day he experienced the deepest anxiety of his life. The titles and honors never seem to end for Yıldırım. He is now chair of the Council of Elders of the Organization of Turkic States. Unlike Erdoğan, he is no hard-line politician. We might even call him a “politician without politics.” An engineer by training, he has little taste for politics’ twists and turns. He is straightforward. He negotiates, speaks with people across the spectrum and does not rush to burn bridges. He favors dialogue and reaching out.
WHO WERE THE TEARS FOR?
The Palestinian cause, and slamming Israel are givens. But who were those tears in New York really for? For Erdoğan, of course. Wasn’t it only recently that Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said an election would be held in 2028 “to reelect our president”? What does that tell us? It is nearly impossible for anyone else in the ruling party to win an election. Forget people like Bilal Erdoğan, Hakan Fidan, Berat Albayrak and Selçuk Bayraktar. Erdoğan’s own party knows better than anyone that he is the only person who can win. After 24 years of single-party rule, that is what the tears shed in New York were really about.
