Turkey’s Erdogan says March election will be his last, state media reports

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said local elections scheduled for March 31 would be his last vote, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.

Erdogan, modern Turkey’s most successful politician, has led the country for more than two decades. A winner of more than a dozen elections since 2002, Erdogan was re-elected for a five-year term during hotly contested elections in May 2023.

“This is a final for me, under the mandate given by the law this is my last election,” Erdogan said. “The result that will come out will be the transferring of a legacy to my siblings who will come after me,” he was cited as saying by Anadolu.