Yalçın Topçu (born 1957) is a Turkish politician and former bureaucrat who served as the Minister of Culture and Tourism in the interim election government formed by Prime Minister

Ahmet Davutoğlu Ahmet Davutoğlu (; born 26 February 1959) is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey and Leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from 2014 to 2016. He previously served as ...

from 28 August to 17 November 2015. He was formerly the leader of the

Life and early career

Yalçın Topçu was born in 1957 in

Ardahan Ardahan (, ka, არტაანი, tr, hy, Արդահան, translit=Ardahan Russian: Ардаган) is a city in northeastern Turkey, near the Georgian border. It is the capital of Ardahan Province. History Ancient and medieval Ardaha ...

in eastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. His family is of Turkish Meskhetian origin.

Bureaucratic career

Topçu was a public sector worker before becoming a founding member of the

Great Union Party The Great Unity Party ( tr, Büyük Birlik Partisi, BBP) or Great Union Party is a far-right Sunni Islamist and ultranationalist political party in Turkey, created on 29 January 1993.Prime Ministry of Turkey for 11 years. In 2007, he retired from the civil service while serving as an assistant manager for business.

Political career

While serving as the district President of the Nationalist Labour Party (MÇP) branch in Mamak,

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

, Topçu joined 6 MÇP Members of Parliament and resigned from the party on 7 July 2007. He subsequently became a founding member of the

Great Union Party The Great Unity Party ( tr, Büyük Birlik Partisi, BBP) or Great Union Party is a far-right Sunni Islamist and ultranationalist political party in Turkey, created on 29 January 1993.Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu (December 31, 1954 – March 25, 2009) was a Turkish politician and member of the Parliament of Turkey. He was the leader and founder of the Great Union Party (BBP), a right-wing, nationalist-Islamist political party. ...

to become the General Secretary of the party, a position to which he was elected in the BBP's 3rd congress in 2007. After the death of Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu in 2009, Topçu was elected leader of the BBP in the party's 4th congress. He resigned after a defeat in the 2011 general election. In a statement he released on his party's website, Topçu stated that he bore the blame for the party's failure and that there is no word to be said after the people of a democracy had spoken. On 3 February 2014, he resigned from the BBP altogether.

Minister of Culture and Tourism

After the June 2015 general election resulted in a

hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisla ...

, unsuccessful coalition negotiations raised speculation over whether President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would call an early election in the event that AKP leader

was unable to form a government within the given constitutional time of 45 days. As required by the 114th article of the Constitution of Turkey, the calling of a snap general election by the President necessitates the forming of an interim election government, in which all parties represented in Parliament are given a certain number of ministers according to how many MPs they have. If a party refused to send ministers to the interim cabinet, then independents must take their place. As an independent politician, Topçu was appointed as the Minister of Culture and Tourism by Davutoğlu on 28 August 2015, a move which came as a general surprise to many political observers and commentators.

References

External links