The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into former Turkish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on suspicion of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The prosecutor’s office said Thursday it launched the investigation on its own initiative under Article 299/1 of the Turkish Penal Code over remarks deemed insulting to the president that circulated on social media.
An old video resurfaced Wednesday showing Davutoglu speaking with villagers while he was leader of the opposition Future Party, which announced on July 30 that it would dissolve and withdraw from politics. Insulting the president is punishable by up to four years in prison under Turkish law.
In the video, Davutoglu criticized Erdogan without naming him.
“Unlike the ministers who came after me, I did not earn a single penny illicitly,” he said. “I told them not to make illicit gains, but they did. They added billions to their billions, amassed ill-gotten gains and enriched their entourage.”
He added: “He appointed his son-in-law [Berat Albayrak, former energy and natural resources minister and treasury and finance minister] as a minister, enriched his relatives and handed Türkiye over to five contractors.”
A political science academic known as “the professor” within the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Davutoglu served as an adviser to former President Abdullah Gul and later to Erdogan when he was prime minister before becoming foreign minister.
He succeeded Erdogan as AKP leader after Erdogan was elected president in 2014, when Türkiye’s parliamentary system barred presidents from belonging to political parties. Davutoglu resigned as party leader in 2016 amid differences with Erdogan over the management of the party and country.
He left the AKP in 2019 as their differences deepened and founded the Future Party. On July 30, he unexpectedly announced plans to dissolve it and withdraw from party politics, citing Türkiye’s “corrupt political climate.”
Davutoglu said the decision was “not a surrender or an abandonment of politics,” but an attempt to maintain an “ethical distance” from the political sphere.
He criticized Türkiye’s presidential system, citing a weakened separation of powers and ineffective checks and balances, and identified corruption, lack of merit, polarization and declining trust in the judiciary among the country’s main problems.
Davutoglu also warned that anger over authoritarianism, corruption, income inequality, restrictions and violations of the law could produce a “retaliatory counter-government” as polarization spreads from politics into society.
The Future Party was formally dissolved at a general congress on August 22. Political circles in Ankara said Davutoglu’s decision followed failed merger talks with the right-wing New Welfare and Felicity parties.
