Government > Leaders Stats: compare key data on Estonia & Turkey

SHARE TWEET EMBED

Select year 2013 2014

•  

STAT	Estonia	Turkey	HISTORY
Head of state > Term limit for head of state	5 Ranked 93th. The same as Turkey	5 Ranked 110th.
President	Toomas Hendrik Ilves	Abdullah Gul
President > Profile	<p>Mr Ilves was first sworn in as president in October 2006.</p> <p>As head of state, the president is supreme commander of the armed forces and represents Estonia abroad. However, the role is mainly ceremonial.</p> <p>The president is elected to a five-year term by MPs and local officials. Mr Ilves was re-elected for a second five-year term in August 2011.</p> <p>Born in 1953, Mr Ilves is a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party.</p>	<p>Abdullah Gul was chosen as president by parliament in August 2007, after months of controversy over his nomination. He is Turkey&#039;s first head of state with a background in political Islam in a country with strong secularist principles.</p> <p>The months leading to his eventual election saw street demonstrations, an opposition boycott of parliament, early parliamentary elections and warnings from the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960.</p> <p>Turkish secularists, including army generals, opposed Mr Gul&#039;s nomination, fearing he would try to undermine Turkey&#039;s strict separation of state and religion. Secularists also did not want Turkey&#039;s First Lady to wear the Muslim headscarf.</p> <p>The army top brass and the main opposition Republican People&#039;s Party, stayed away from Mr Gul&#039;s swearing-in ceremony.</p> <p>Mr Gul started in politics in an Islamist party that was banned by the courts, but later renounced the idea that Islam should be a driving force in politics. In 2001, along with other moderate members of the Islamist movement, he founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and distanced himself from his past political leanings.</p> <p>The party won elections in 2002 and Mr Gul served as stand-in prime minister before stepping aside for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Gul served as foreign minister under Mr Erdogan and cultivated an image as a moderate politician, acting as an impassioned voice for reforms to promote Turkey&#039;s EU bid.</p> <p>The government holds most power but the president can veto laws, appoint officials, and name judges. Voters in a referendum in October 2007 backed plans to have future presidents elected by the people instead of by parliament.</p>
President > Summary	Social Democrat Hendrik Toomas Ilves has occupied the largely cermonial role of president since 2006	Abdullah Gul is seen as a moderate figure
Prime minister	Andrus Ansip	Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Prime minister > Profile	<p>The centre-right coalition led by Andrus Ansip increased its parliamentary majority in elections held in March 2011. </p><p>Mr Ansip thus bettered his own record of being Estonia&#039;s first sitting prime minister to be re-elected since the country quit the Soviet Union in 1991.</p> <p>He became prime minister in April 2005 and in March 2007 his centre-right Reform Party won parliamentary polls, but with too small a margin to govern alone.</p> <p>It went on to form a coalition with the conservative Pro Patria-Res Publica (IRL) and the Social Democrats.</p> <p>The re-election of the coalition in March 2011 was seen as voters rewarding the government for piloting the country through the economic crisis caused by the credit crunch of 2008, and into recovery.</p> <p>It was also Estonia&#039;s first election since joining the single European currency in January 2011. Mr Ansip had originally aimed for eurozone membership in January 2007 but high inflation led the government to put back the target entry date.</p> <p>Taking office for his third term, Mr Ansip said that improving the quality of people&#039;s lives was a top priority.</p> <p>But by late 2012, his party&#039;s opinion poll ratings fell to a record low as a result of popular anger at the quashing of a money-laundering and party funding case and the subsequent resignation of the justice minister, Kristen Michal. </p> <p>In the run-up to the March 2007 poll Mr Ansip backed legislation that paved the way for the removal of a controversial Red Army memorial in Tallinn. The law, and the subsequent relocation of the statue, sparked fury in Moscow.</p> <p>Andrus Ansip was 48 when he became premier. He entered national politics in 2004 following six years as mayor of Tartu, Estonia&#039;s second city.</p> <p>He is married and has three daughters. </p>	<p>Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a third term of office in June 2011, following a resounding general election win for his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP).</p> <p>The election gave the AKP its highest electoral score since coming to power in 2002, and put Mr Erdogan on course to become the most successful leader in Turkey&#039;s democratic history.</p> <p>His party nonetheless fell just short of the majority it was seeking to press ahead with a major constitutional overhaul without the support of other parties in parliament. Mr Erdogan in his victory speech promised to seek compromise with the opposition over the issue.</p> <p>Mr Erdogan has brought economic and political stability to Turkey and faced down the country&#039;s powerful military establishment, which previously had a history of overthrowing elected governments that it saw as challenging either the secular constitution or national security.</p> <p>Steady military pressure combined with negotiations also brought the Kurdish rebel PKK group to a truce that provided for a withdrawal of all PKK fighters to Iraq from May 2013.</p> <p>In September 2010, his government won resounding public approval for its plans to change the 30-year-old constitution. The amendments to the constitution were aimed at reducing still further the power of the military and meeting the requirements for EU membership.</p> <p>Opponents accuse the government of authoritarianism and point to growing intolerance towards critical journalists and media. The Journalists Union of Turkey says 94 were in jail for carrying out their professional duties - the highest number in the world. More than half are members of the Kurdish minority.</p> <p>The heavy sentences handed down to retired military officers found guilty of conspiring against the Islamist government have also led Mr Erdogan&#039;s critics to accuse him of trying to silence the secularist opposition. The prime minister denies that these cases are politically motivated. </p> <p>Mr Erdogan hinted in October 2012 that he might stand for the presidency in 2014, and is widely expected to made renewed efforts to boost the constitutional powers of the head of state ahead of the vote in order to turn Turkey into a presidential republic.</p> <p>Mr Erdogan first became prime minister several months after his party&#039;s landslide election victory in November 2002. He had been barred from standing in the poll because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally. Changes to the constitution paved the way for him to run for parliament in 2003.</p> <p>He identified EU entry as a top priority and introduced reforms which paved the way for the opening of membership talks in October 2005. although these have run into the twin pillars of widespread European opposition and the eurozone crisis. </p> <p>Since then Mr Erdogan&#039;s foreign policy has concentrated as seeking a role as honest broker in the Middle East by building bridges to Iran and Arab states, while adopting a stridently hostile tone towards Turkey&#039;s longstanding ally Israel - albeit falling short of severing diplomatic relations. </p> <p>The popularity of his &quot;Turkish model&quot; among liberals and moderate Islamic groups in Arab countries has boosted Turkey&#039;s prestige, although this has yet to translate into tangible foreign-policy gains for the country.</p> <p>In the summer of 2013 Mr Erdogan began to look vulnerable for the first time as mass anti-government protests erupted in several cities, further inflamed by the violent police response.</p> <p>A further threat to Mr Erdogan&#039;s continued rule emerged in December 2013, when police launched an inquiry into alleged corruption among the prime minister&#039;s allies. Mr Erdogan denounced the probe as a &quot;dirty operation&quot; against his government.</p>
Prime minister > Summary	Andrus Ansip is the longest-serving prime minister since independence in 1991	Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

15 30 60 All

APA MLA MHRA CSE AMA Chicago Bluebook Bluebook/JOLT Citation