Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Difference between revisions

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'''Recep Tayyip Erdoğan''' (February 26<sup>th</sup>, 1954 - ) is a Turkish politician who has been the President of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as the Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the [[Justice and Development Party|Justice and Development Party (AKP)]] in 2001 and led it to three general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before standing down as leader upon his election as President in 2014. Originating from an Islamist political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, his administration has overseen social conservative and liberal economic policies. His political agenda and ideals are often referred to as Erdoğanism.

==Biography==

Erdoğan was born in the Kasımpaşa, a poor neighborhood of Istanbul, to which his family had moved from Rize Province in the 1930s. His parents were Ahmet Erdoğan (1905–88) and Tenzile Erdoğan (née Mutlu; 1924–2011).

Erdoğan spent his early childhood in Rize, where his father was a captain in the Turkish Coast Guard. His summer holidays were mostly spent in Güneysu, Rize, where his family originates. Throughout his life he often returned to this spiritual home, and in 2015 he opened a vast mosque on a mountaintop near this village. The family returned to Istanbul when Erdoğan was 13 years old.

As a teenager, Erdoğan's father provided him with a weekly allowance of 2.5 Turkish lira, less than a dollar. With it, Erdoğan bought postcards and resold them on the street. He sold bottles of water to drivers stuck in traffic. Erdoğan also worked as a street vendor selling simit (sesame bread rings), wearing a white gown and selling the simit from a red three-wheel cart with the rolls stacked behind glass.

Erdoğan was a semi-professional footballer playing for Kasımpaşa before being elected as the Mayor of Istanbul from the Islamist Welfare Party in 1994. He was stripped and banned from office and imprisoned for 4 months for the recitation of a poem in a political speech in 1998 after which he abandoned openly Islamist politics and established the moderate conservative AKP in 2001. The AKP won a landslide victory in the 2002 general election, with the party's co-founder [[Abdullah Gül]] becoming Prime Minister until his government annulled Erdoğan's ban from political office. Erdoğan subsequently became Prime Minister in March 2003 after winning a seat in a by-election held in Siirt.

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 '''Recep Tayyip Erdoğan''' (February 26<sup>th</sup>, 1954 - ) is a Turkish politician who has been the President of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as the Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the [[Justice and Development Party|Justice and Development Party (AKP)]] in 2001 and led it to three general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011 before standing down as leader upon his election as President in 2014. Originating from an Islamist political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, his administration has overseen social conservative and liberal economic policies. His political agenda and ideals are often referred to as Erdoğanism.
+==Biography==
+Erdoğan was born in the Kasımpaşa, a poor neighborhood of Istanbul, to which his family had moved from Rize Province in the 1930s. His parents were Ahmet Erdoğan (1905–88) and Tenzile Erdoğan (née Mutlu; 1924–2011).
+Erdoğan spent his early childhood in Rize, where his father was a captain in the Turkish Coast Guard. His summer holidays were mostly spent in Güneysu, Rize, where his family originates. Throughout his life he often returned to this spiritual home, and in 2015 he opened a vast mosque on a mountaintop near this village. The family returned to Istanbul when Erdoğan was 13 years old.
+As a teenager, Erdoğan's father provided him with a weekly allowance of 2.5 Turkish lira, less than a dollar. With it, Erdoğan bought postcards and resold them on the street. He sold bottles of water to drivers stuck in traffic. Erdoğan also worked as a street vendor selling simit (sesame bread rings), wearing a white gown and selling the simit from a red three-wheel cart with the rolls stacked behind glass.
 Erdoğan was a semi-professional footballer playing for Kasımpaşa before being elected as the Mayor of Istanbul from the Islamist Welfare Party in 1994. He was stripped and banned from office and imprisoned for 4 months for the recitation of a poem in a political speech in 1998 after which he abandoned openly Islamist politics and established the moderate conservative AKP in 2001. The AKP won a landslide victory in the 2002 general election, with the party's co-founder [[Abdullah Gül]] becoming Prime Minister until his government annulled Erdoğan's ban from political office. Erdoğan subsequently became Prime Minister in March 2003 after winning a seat in a by-election held in Siirt.