ISTANBUL — Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, barred from seeking a fourth term, is exploring ways to create a strongman presidency and run for the powerful new office next year, but critics fear his political engineering could undermine the country’s secular democratic tradition.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister since 2003, has rejected the American constitutional blueprint of checks and balances between the White House and Congress, and instead has called for a “Turkish-style presidential system.”