Turkey's leading business association, the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmens' Association (TÜSİAD), which is already experiencing difficulty to keep its chairman on duty, is easing the eligibility criteria for the chairmanship to be able to elect the new chairman at the upcoming annual congress on Jan. 22, 2015. The current chairman, Haluk Dinçer, who replaced Muharrem Yılmaz after his resignation last June, is not running for chairman at the upcoming annual congress. According to sources within TÜSİAD, the Presidential Council of the business association decided to ease eligibility criteria for the chairmanship to find a new chairman. "TÜSİAD is having one of the most difficult periods in its history. After having changed two chairmen in the last 12 months, TÜSİAD is faced with a situation such as inability to find a candidate for the chairmanship. Therefore the Presidential Council had to ease the eligibility criteria," one of the senior members of TÜSİAD told Daily Sabah on the condition of anonymity.According to TÜSİAD's established practices, which have been applied since 1971, candidates for the chairmanship need to be a member of the administrative body of the business association. However, in order to avoid a situation of inability to find a candidate, even the regular members are expected to be able to run for the chairmanship.Even though TÜSİAD is known for its pro-European stance and its willingness to democratize the system and decrease the role of the military, TÜSİAD supported the 1980 coup as well as anti-democratic laws and the Constitution that was drafted after military intervention. The organization also supported the 1997 military memorandum, called the post-modern coup, which refers to the decisions issued by Turkish military leadership in a National Security Council meeting on Feb. 28, 1997. However, since the 2000s TÜSİAD started to lose its influence in Turkish politics and had quite problematic relations with the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) governments.Furthermore, Dinçer's caused more deterioration in the already problematic relations between TÜSİAD and the government. After Dinçer said, "TÜSİAD's addressee is not the president, it is the prime minister and the ministers related to our field," in a recent interview, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he would not attend TÜSİAD meetings. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also showed the same reaction and said that he too will not attend the next plenary session of TÜSİAD scheduled for Jan. 22.