Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, postponed planned campaign activities on Wednesday after becoming ill during a live TV broadcast on Tuesday night. Erdogan is facing the most difficult election of his 20-year administration.
In a tweet, Erdogan stated, “Today, I will be resting at home on the advice of our doctors,” adding that his illness was only a “minor inconvenience due to (his) busy work.”
The vice-president, Fuat Oktay, will take the place of the Turkish president, who was scheduled to conduct rallies in three separate Turkish cities on Wednesday.
A stomach ache caused Erdoan to end a live interview on Tuesday night.
He later came back to the screen, explaining he had suffered from a “serious stomach cold” and had considered canceling the interview — which started one-and-a-half hours late — after doing “intense campaign work” on Monday and Tuesday.
“Naturally, we are facing such issues from time to time amid such a busy schedule,” Erdoğan said.
“Praise God, our president is in good health,” Erdoğan’s spokesperson İbrahim Kalın tweeted after the incident.
Erdoğan, 69, has been in power since 2003 and is set for a tough reelection battle in the general election on May 14.
The opposition coalition, made up of six parties from across the political spectrum, has united behind Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, an understated 74-year-old and former bureaucrat who is ahead in the polls.
The Kurdish vote, which makes up a fifth of the country’s 85 million population, is likely to play a decisive role in the election.
Although Kılıçdaroğlu has not formally been backed by the main pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), it has not nominated a presidential candidate incidentally boosting his cause.
Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi” because of his slight build and mild demeanor, wished Erdoğan a “speedy recovery” after he took ill during the interview.