ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called snap elections in Turkey for June 24, bringing the polls forward by over a year-and-a-half to sharply accelerate the transition to a new presidential system.

Erdogan’s announcement upended the political timetable in Turkey, which had been set to vote in simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections on November 3, 2019.

The elections are especially significant as afterwards a new executive presidency — agreed in a 2017 referendum and denounced by critics as giving the president authoritarian powers — will come into force.—AFP