A Turkish parliamentarian will be elected new President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the first time in history.
Mevlut Cavusoglu of the ruling Justice & Development (AK) Party, who also heads the Turkish delegation to PACE, will replace Lluis Maria de Puig of Spain during Monday's voting. Cavusoglu, who was nominated by the European Democrat Group, is the only candidate for the post, the Anatolian Agency reported.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe(PACE), which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an intergovernmental treaty. The Assembly is one of the two statutory organs of the Council of Europe, which is composed of the Committee of Ministers (the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meeting usually at the level of their deputies) and the Assembly representing the political forces (majority and opposition) in its member states.
PACE has a total of 642 members – 321 principal members and 321 substitutes – who are representatives of each member state. There are also 18 delegates from the Canadian, Israeli and Mexican observers. The size of each country determines its number of representatives and number of votes. This is in contrast in the committee of ministers, where each country has one vote.
Each State member selects its method of designating its representatives to the parliamentary assembly; however, they must be chosen from among the members of the respective Parliaments. Moreover, the political composition of each national delegation must reflect the representation of the different parties within the respective parliaments.
Established on August 14, 2001, the Justice and Development Party(AK Party or AKP) is Turkey’s ruling political party, which came to power in 2002. The AKP portrays itself as a moderate, conservative, pro-Western party that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union. The party leaders are Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul. The AKP is often accused retreating from secular principles laid by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.
