Having been exiled after the abolishment of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922, some living family members are now propagandizing Erdoğan's presidential model
Some Ottoman family members continue to support the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s executive presidential system.
Nilhan Osmanoğlu, great granddaughter of Abdul Hamid II, one of the most controversial sultans in the late Ottoman period, declared her support to AKP’s executive presidential system during a conference, saying, “Enough is enough with the parliamentary system”.
Advocating the ‘yes’ campaign for the upcoming referendum, Nilhan Osmanoğlu said, “My vote is of course ‘yes’. There are many reasons. I think that the parliamentary system has always done harm to my values and those who I saw as the men of the cause. For example, were not Adnan Menderes [former PM] and his fellows hanged because of the parliamentary system? That is why they were martyred.”
Referring to Erdoğan, Osmanoğlu said, “Was not our President politically banned for having recited a poem? İmam-hatip schools [religious schools] were shut down; our girls were tormented due to wearing hijab because of this parliamentary system. Is this a democratic country?
Nilhan Osmanoğlu continued, “Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu [main opposition CHP leader] says, ‘What is wrong with the parliamentary system?’ Enough is enough with the parliamentary system. Therefore, we say ‘yes’ to the presidential system.”
Osmanoğlu previously said on her Twitter account that “I say ‘yes’ in order not to let our President to the isolation of Sultan Abdul Hamid”.
NİLHAN OSMANOĞLU: ‘ENTREPRENEUR MONARCHIST’
While Turkey is to carry out a referendum for shifting its existing parliamentary system to an executive presidential model, great-granddaughter of late Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II, Nilhan Osmanoğlu has come to the fore recently with her anti-Republican activities and campaigns amid rhetorically monarchist ambitions in Turkey.
Osmanoğlu has declared that she will launch “Presidential Schools” across the country for educating the politicians of the future. Osmanoğlu plans to organize these schools within the body of the Turkish Presidency.
Showing her ‘entrepreneurial soul’, on the other hand, Nilhan Osmanoğlu has already launched a shopping website through which she commercializes Ottoman-related goods from perfumes and textile products to souvenirs.
