He's back. Struggling with an intestinal virus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reappeared on Thursday, April 27, live on television, two days after having to interrupt a live interview.

The head of state, forced to cancel his trips on Wednesday and Thursday, 17 days before perilous presidential and parliamentary elections, spoke by videoconference from the presidential palace in Ankara for the inauguration of Turkey's first nuclear power plant. "Our country has risen to the league of countries endowed with nuclear energy," said the Turkish president, his features drawn, dispelling however the most alarmist rumors about his state of health.

The inauguration of the Akkuyu power plant (in southern Turkey), built by the Russian giant Rosatom, was to be one of the highlights of the week for the Turkish president. The latter, who was initially to go there, had even expected the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also spoke by videoconference before him, to welcome this inauguration, "a flagship project" supposed to "strengthen" relations between Moscow and Ankara.

On Wednesday evening, the director of communication of the Turkish presidency, Fahrettin Altun, wanted to silence the rumors surging on social networks after the announcement of the cancellation of the two trips of the head of state scheduled for Thursday.

"We categorically reject such unfounded claims regarding the health of President @RTErdogan," Fahrettin Altun tweeted, sharing screenshots of widely relayed tweets claiming that the Turkish president had suffered a heart attack.

We categorically reject such baseless claims regarding President @RTErdogan's health.

The President will attend tomorrow's nuclear power plant opening via videoconference.

No amount of disinformation can dispute the fact that the Turkish people stand with their leader and... pic.twitter.com/SSr3KaWXlS

— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) April 26, 2023

"A stomach flu"

The episode began Tuesday evening: the head of state, less than twenty days before the double election of May 14, was to give a long interview to two Turkish television channels, after having made three public appearances in three different cities earlier in the day.

The program, delayed without explanation by an hour and a half, was interrupted suddenly at the tenth minute, in the middle of a question from a journalist. "Oh wow," said an unidentified voice behind the camera before the show was cut, as the interviewer rose from his chair.

The head of state, pale complexion, reappeared on the air a quarter of an hour later before shortening the interview, explaining that he had "caught a stomach flu".

In a tweet, the Turkish president, whose approach has sometimes slowed down in recent years, had announced the next morning to "rest at home today (Wednesday) on the advice of doctors", canceling three trips planned in central Anatolia.

"He's fine. The effects of his gastroenteritis have diminished. He wants to resume his program as soon as possible," Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said Thursday afternoon.

Turks abroad are already voting

The episode, however, comes at a very bad time for the head of state, as the 3.4 million Turks abroad registered to vote began voting on Thursday.

In power since 2003, first as Prime Minister and then as President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing an opposition advancing in a united front and given a good position by the polls.

His main opponent, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, at the head of an alliance of six opposition parties, received the tacit support of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, considered the kingmaker of the presidential election.

In the final stretch before the elections, the head of state planned to line up two to three daily meetings, after sharing during the month of Ramadan the meal of breaking the fast in a different locality each evening.

The health of the Turkish leader, for which no medical report is made public, had fueled speculation after an operation on the large intestine in late 2011, followed by another surgery the following year.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, publicly denied suffering from colon cancer, explaining that the operations were aimed at removing polyps.

With AFP

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