Abdüllatif Şener

Who is Abdüllatif Şener?

Abdüllatif Şener is a former Finance Minister in the 54th cabinet of the Turkish Government and served as the Deputy Prime Minister in the 58th and 59th cabinets of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Şener was born in Gürün, Sivas Province in Turkey. He graduated from the School of Political Sciences at Ankara University. He earned his PhD degree from Gazi University in Ankara. He lectured on finance at Gazi University and Hacettepe University, before he served as a controller in the Department of Revenues within the Ministry of Finance.

Şener entered politics and was elected 1991 deputy of Sivas Province from the Islamist Welfare Party. Following the ban of the Welfare Party in 1998, he became a member of the newly established Virtue Party, which was also banned after three years in 2001. He was co-founder of the Justice and Development Party in 2001. He was elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as deputy of Sivas Province.

He did not run for a seat in the parliament in the 2007 general elections again. After leaving the AK Party, he formed a new party; it was officially announced on 27 May 2009 and is called Turkey Party.

Şener announced that the Turkey Party was officially closed on 27 August 2012 due to difficulties to maintain the political goals outside the parliament.