[4] After the June 2015 general election resulted in a hung parliament, unsuccessful coalition negotiations raised speculation over whether President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would call an early election in the event that AKP leader Ahmet Davutoğlu was unable to form a government within the given constitutional time of 45 days.

Erdoğan called a new general election for November 2015 in late August, with Davutoğlu being tasked with the formation of the interim government.

[5] The appointment was seen as significant due to the staunchly secular political traditions of Turkey, which until recently banned the use of the headscarf by MPs and civil servants.

'[9] Her reply was hailed as a shutdown of the börek commotion by pro-government newspapers but were criticised as an attempt to brush off her old controversial comments by the pro-opposition media.

[10][11] In September 2015, it was reported that Gürcan had written a complaint about the Undersecretary to the Family and Social Policy Ministry, Nesrin Çelik, to the President of Turkey.

The complaint, which allegedly arose from institutional disagreements between the two women, was eyed sceptically by several commentators since Çelik was well known to be close to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In response to videos of beheadings and pictures documenting the brutality of the ISIL terrorist organisation in Iraq and Syria, Gürcan tweeted that no-one should take such footage seriously just 'because the West wants it'.