Cemil Çiçek

Cemil Çiçek (pronounced [dʒemil tʃitʃec]; born 15 November 1946 in Yozgat) is a Turkish politician who is the current Speaker of the Parliament of Turkey since July 4, 2011. He served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey and Justice and Development Party Member of Parliament from Ankara. He was formerly Minister of Justice and government spokesman.

Early life

He was born on 15 November 1946 in Yozgat, Turkey. He graduated from the Law Faculty of Istanbul University. In 1983, he joined the centre-right ANAP. He became an ANAP MP for Yozgat, and in the late 1980s Minister of State responsible for "the family". In this role he was known for his conservative views on matters of sex and marriage.

Political career

He later became Minister for Energy and Natural Resources but was expelled from ANAP in 1997, upon which he joined the Islamic leaning Fazilet Party, which later evolved into the AK Party.

He was Minister of Justice in the first AK Party government (from 2003 to 2007), when as a former ANAP MP he was thought to be one of the leading figures of the AK Party, most acceptable to the Turkish military. During his ministry, he had to deal with situations including:

• the 2003 Istanbul bombings
• the release of former MP Leyla Zana from prison,
• the prosecutions of a number of police officers accused of torturing prisoners,
• an attempted suicide bombing of his ministry.

His legislation included stricter controls of prisons (in 2006).

Speaker of the Parliament

Lawmaker Cemil Çiçek of the Justice & Development (AK) Party became the new parliament speaker of Turkey in the third round of vote on July 4, 2011. Çiçek received 302 votes in the first round voting, while Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) parliamentarian Tunca Toskay received 50 votes. The AK Party's second candidate, Zelkif Kazdal, received 23 votes and withdrew his nomination after the first round. Çiçek went on to win 322 votes and Tunca Toskay won 52 in the second round of voting. Çiçek was elected as the new speaker with 322 votes in the third round, in which Toskay received 50 votes. Three votes were declared invalid. In his speech after his election, Çiçek appealed to the opposition parties that were boycotting Parliament to take their oaths. "Parliament should be a place of work, not of conflict. We have many issues to solve. We can't afford to waste any time," Çiçek said.^[1]

Quotes

• The mentality of the general public is the prime obstacle to rule of law (in Turkey). "Our public does not want justice, they just want their own affairs sorted out. They want to see corruption investigated but they are not ashamed to manage their own affairs corruptly. The public actually doesn't care about corruption. They say "let someone tackle it while we watch and see who wins" as if it were a football match. He then went to blame the professional bodies for not exposing corruption among their members. ^[2]
• The Islamic world will get nowhere by blaming all its problems on the outside world and making itself out to be a white spoon just pulled out of the milk^[3]
• (Upon the release from prison of Leyla Zana..)The Turkish courts have played their part. Now the EU has no excuse (not to begin entry negotiations with Turkey)

References