Turkish premier ranks first in Time magazine's poll

WASHINGTON (A.A) - December 13, 2011 - Turkey's prime minister completed the "person of the year 2011" poll of the U.S. Time magazine in the first place. The vote to choose the "person of the year" ended on Monday. Accordingly, Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 122,931 votes and became the first runner-up. Football player Lionel Messi came the second with 74,415 votes. Erdogan not only topped "the most popular people" list but also "the least popular people" list. Erdogan came the first in the least popular people list with 180,564 votes.  The magazine wrote that Erdogan was eulogized as "the representative of Islamic democracy", contributed to efforts to make Turkey the second fastest growing economy in the world, and was the mostly-admired world leader among Arabs although he was not an Arab himself according to a survey of the Maryland University. Time also said Erdogan brought enthusiastic crowds together. Every year, Time carries out a poll on who should be the person of the year, however it chooses the person who will be on the cover of the magazine. For instance, Erdogan was ranked the first in the poll last year, however in the last minute Wikileaks' founder Julien Assange topped the poll but this person caused discussions. Then, editors of the magazine made Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, the cover of the magazine. Time will make public the "person of the year 2011" within this week.