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

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STAT	Romania	Turkey	HISTORY
Head of state > Term limit for head of state	5 Ranked 54th. The same as Turkey	5 Ranked 110th.
President	Traian Basescu	Abdullah Gul
President > Profile	<p>Traian Basescu, a former sea captain and mayor of Bucharest, first became president following elections in 2004. </p> <p>He gained a second endorsement from the electorate in a May 2007 referendum when they rejected an attempt by parliament to impeach him. MPs had decided by a large majority to remove him from office, accusing him of exceeding his constitutional powers. </p> <p>The attempt to impeach the president followed tension between him and the government of then Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu over the pace of reforms. </p> <p>Mr Basescu won the December 2009 presidential election by a very narrow majority over the opposition Social Democrats&#039; Mircea Geoana. </p> <p>Since he came to power, Mr Basescu has drawn international praise for his anti-corruption efforts and for preparing Romania to join the EU. </p> <p>He has faced frequent challenges to his authority from his opponents in government, and has been suspended from office twice pending efforts to impeach him - in 2007 and July 2012.</p> <p>In 2005 Mr Basescu started the process of opening the files of the feared communist-era secret police - the Securitate. Researchers cleared him of accusations that he collaborated with the Securitate. </p> <p>Mr Basescu was 53 at the time of his election. He was transport minister between 1996 and 2000. </p> <p>His predecessor, Ion Iliescu, had dominated Romanian politics since the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Under his Social Democrats, Romania entered Nato and moved towards EU membership. </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	President Basescu is a former sea captain	Abdullah Gul is seen as a moderate figure
Prime minister	Victor Ponta	Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Prime minister > Profile	<p>Victor Ponta became Romania&#039;s third prime minister in less than six months when his left wing-dominated Social Liberal Union (USL) alliance took charge in May 2012 after toppling its predecessor in a confidence vote. </p> <p>Mr Ponta&#039;s party, which came to power by capitalising on mounting discontent over austerity policies, won a landslide victory at parliamentary elections in December 2012.</p> <p>The USL won nearly 60% of the vote, against 17% for the coalition of parties backed by President Basescu, who had threatened to use his power as president to nominate the prime minister to block Mr Ponta&#039;s return to office.</p> <p>Mr Ponta has proved popular with Romanians, but he has faced criticism from some abroad who accuse him of disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law.</p> <p>In his very first months in office, he courted controversy by launching a campaign to impeach President Basescu in the midst of the economic crisis, having already ousted the heads of both houses of parliament and the ombudsman. Senior European politicians and officials have criticised these steps, which threaten to isolate Romania within the European Union.</p> <p>Mr Ponta also faces accusations - which he denies - that he plagiarised part of his doctoral thesis. </p> <p>On coming to power, Mr Ponta promised to stick to a deal with international lenders while seeking to &quot;correct social imbalances&quot;. Romania obtained a 20-billion-euro ($26-billion) rescue package from the IMF, the EU and the World Bank in 2009, in exchange for steps to cut public spending, which helped it emerge from recession.</p> <p>In October 2013 his government faced further scandal when his deputy, Liviu Dragnea, was charged along with 74 other people with trying to rig the 2012 referendum that failed to oust President Basescu.</p> <p>Mr Ponta replaced Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, who in February 2012 succeeded Emil Boc, who in turn had resigned amid violent protests at his government&#039;s drastic public-spending cuts.</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	Victor Ponta has been accused of undermining the rule of law	Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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