Turkey’s PM to Be Ousted as President Moves to Increase Power

After days of reports of tensions between him and President Erdogan, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is reportedly going to be sacked, or “resign” semi-voluntarily in the coming weeks, to replaced with someone with less ambition and more dependence on Erdogan.

Erdogan is in the process of revising the constitution to dramatically increase his own power, taking large amounts of the powers traditionally reserved for the premiership to the presidency. Davutoglu, a top AKP official iin his own right, is said to be objecting to giving up too much of his power.

Analysts say they expect Davutoglu to not only be ousted from his position as PM, but also to step down as the party leader for the AKP, reflecting the growing control over the party, and over Turkish society in general, by Erdogan.

It is expected Davutoglu’s ouster, whether it is presented as “voluntary” or not, will fuel some unrest in the near term, though ultimately with Erdogan dominating politics in Turkey there seems to be very little which can be done about it.