Cemal Çavdarlı

Cemal Çavdarlı (born 15 March 1966) is a binational Turkish-Belgian politician, formerly active in the Socialist Party – Differently (SP.A), since May 2010 in the Lijst Dedecker (LDD), a conservative liberal party and since April 2011 in the Islamic conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey.

1963-2003 - Life before political career

Born in Emirdağ (Turkey), he came in Belgium with his mother in 1975, his father had earlier migrated to France in 1969, then to Belgium in 1972.[1] He went back to Turkey to study at the Eskişehir İmam Hatip school (vocational high school for would-be imams) and came back in Belgium as an imam and religion teacher paid by the official Turkish Diyanet. He also studied education at the Ghent University.[2] He was elected at the Belgian Muslim General Assembly on 13 December 1998, and became a member of the Muslim Executive of Belgium a few months later.

2003-2007 - Belgian Socialist member of Parliament

On 12 July 2003 he was sworn in at the Belgian Chamber of Representatives as a substitute to the elected SP.A MP Freya Van Den Bossche, who became a minister. He was candidate at the next federal elections in 2007 on the Senate list and was not elected.

During his term as a Belgian MP, he went back to Turkey in April 2005 for a few weeks to make his shortened (for emigrants) military service. When this was made public, there was a small controversy about the loyalty of dual citizens towards the Belgian State.[3]

2010 - Unsuccessful Conservative candidate for the Belgian Parliament

When he was informed that he would - as in 2007 - not be put on an eligible place on the SP.A list for the 2010 federal elections he affiliated himself to the LDD and was put on the third place of that list for the West Flanders electoral circle.[4] The LDD suffered a heavy defeat at these elections, only its president was elected in East Flanders, it won no seat elsewhere.

2011 - Islamic conservative candidate for the Turkish Parliament

In April 2011, he was officially announced as fourth candidate on the list of the Islamic conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the upcoming (12 June 2011) parliamentary elections in Turkey in the Eskişehir Province. At the previous elections in 2007, the AKP liste won three of the six seats in this province.[5][6][7] The party did not win more seats in 2011 and Cemal Çavdarlı was not elected. Out of five candidates from the Turkish emigration, only the Swiss Fazilet Dağcı Çığlık, who had already been elected in Erzurum in 2007 for the AKP, was elected, but neither the Belgian Cemal Çavdarlı nor the Germans (all from Köln) Turgut Öker (leader of the German Alevi Association and independent candidate in Istanbul for the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party), Metin Keskin (an architect and CHP candidate in the province of Sivas) and Aydın Yardımcı (CEO of Aydin, a meat company in Köln, former member of the right-wing ANAP Party, Democratic Party candidate in Ankara).[8]

References
  1. Dutch: "Geboren in Emirdag (Turkije) en op 1 februari 1975 op negenjarige leeftijd naar Gent gekomen met zijn moeder. Vader was sinds 1969 in Frankrijk aan het werk en verhuisde in 1972 naar Gent" in: "Cemal Cavdarli". Het Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). 27 March 2005. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  2. Aktan, Mehmet; Kurtulmuş, Irfan (7 December 2006). "'Misafir işçi'lerin çocukları artık milletvekili". Milliyet (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 9 December 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  3. Samyn, Steven (4 June 2005). "Pourquoi un député ne peut-il pas faire de service militaire en Turquie ?". De Standaard (in French). Archived from the original on 28 July 2005. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  4. Dutch: "Toen het duidelijk werd dat er voor hem bij SP.A geen zichtbare plaats op de lijst inzat, stapte Cavdarli over naar Lijst Dedecker." in: DIH (May 14, 2010). "Cemal Cavdarli stapt over van SP.A naar LDD". Het Nieuwsblad (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
  5. Cihan News Agency (April 12, 2011). "Belçika siyasetinden Türkiye'ye transfer". Sabah (in Turkish). Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  6. Mehmet Koksal (April 11, 2011). "Un ex-député belge candidat AKP aux législatives en Turquie". Parlemento-Independent News Agency (in French). Archived from the original on 16 April 2011. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  7. Official liste of candidates Archived April 22, 2011, at the Wayback Machine for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the 2011 parliamentary elections in Turkey
  8. Kandidaten aus Europa erneut leer ausgegangen Archived 2011-10-08 at the Wayback Machine, Turkish Press, 15 June 2011
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