I will invoke my fortune-telling skills and claim that if one day Erdoğan decides to step aside and finds himself in a position to point to a successor, this person will be someone from the family. That is, either Selçuk Bayraktar or Bilal Erdoğan…
By Mehmet Y. Yılmaz
The recent "mobilization" of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s younger son, Bilal Erdoğan, is drawing attention.
Our brother, Mr. Bilal, is seizing every opportunity that comes his way, garnering attention by delivering ambitious speeches.
As you know, he is a Harvard graduate and a figure distinguished by his business acumen.
Just like the former Prime Minister Bin Ali Yıldırım’s children, he is a successful entrepreneur and businessman in the maritime sector, waving the Turkish flag across the seven seas!
He also owns a "grill company" in partnership with his brother, as well as a souvenir business partnered with other individuals.
Since these naturally do not satisfy a Harvard graduate like Mr. Bilal, he manages to dedicate time to foundation work as well.
His speeches are mostly related to these activities.
Most recently, he lashed out at TÜSİAD (Turkish Industry and Business Association), asking why TÜSİAD-member businessmen did not build 50,000 of the earthquake housing units in Antioch/Hatay.
He didn't drag MÜSİAD into it, so the thought crossed my mind that perhaps they had built 50,000 homes, though I was unable to verify this information.
Among all these speeches, the one that moved me the most was the one he delivered at the Entrepreneurial Businessmen Foundation; after all, he is an entrepreneur himself.
I underlined the following sentence from his speech there:
“We will understand the value of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in times when we cannot grow this fast, when the economy is not expanding exponentially.”
I do not know if he said these words consciously or if they just slipped out.
Of course, it is not right to engage in a polemic with any child regarding their father; therefore, my intention is not to discuss the content of these words.
However, bringing up "days when we will understand Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s value" out of the blue is confusing; let me say that much.
Because this sentence is something one might say about someone understood to be leaving, yet the current picture gives no indication that the President is on his way out.
However, I will pass over this as well, because these words may essentially be pointing to a future successor-predecessor situation.
I am speaking of potential ambitions for power within the AKP.
This is the question of who will take over if Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decides to step aside one day.
Among the possible candidates, Berat Albayrak was eliminated a long time ago.
Now, among the favorites are his son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan.
Our brother, Mr. Bilal, is also emerging as another candidate; the fact that he is taken on foreign trips with his father, included in official delegations, and hosted in governors' offices during domestic trips should be counted as a sign of this.
Here, I will invoke my fortune-telling skills and claim that if one day Erdoğan decides to step aside and finds himself in a position to point to a successor, this person will be someone from the family.
That is, either Selçuk Bayraktar or Mr. Bilal.
Erdoğan previously attempted a "proxy arrangement" with Davutoğlu and saw that it would not work.
He will approach Fidan with hesitation for this very reason.
Therefore, he will not, and cannot, trust anyone other than a member of his family.
Currently, Mr. Bilal appears to be ahead in the intra-family race.
It seems Selçuk Bayraktar has little interest in these matters, but when that final moment of decision arrives, if the "cause" calls him, he will likely not hesitate.
Of course, all of this is my personal speculation; it would not be correct for the prosecutors to attribute any legal meaning to these words.
* This article was first published in T24 on 10 December and translated by The Levant Files for its readers.
Photo: T24