Ex-Islamist Gul elected Turkey's president
08-28-2007
ANKARA (AFP)
The Turkish parliament on Tuesday elected Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president, making him the secular republic's first head of state with an Islamist past.
Gul, who is deeply mistrusted by the secular establishment, won 339 votes in the 550-member parliament, well above the simple majority of 276 votes required in the decisive third round ballot.
The governing Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) had failed to get Gul elected in the first two rounds of voting held last week, with its 340 seats falling short of the required two-thirds majority.
The other two contenders -- Sabahattin Cakmakoglu from the right-wing Nationalist Action Party and Tayfun Icli from the centre-left Democratic Left Party -- got 70 and 13 votes respectively in Tuesday's ballot.
It was a moment of glory and vindication for both the AKP and the 56-year-old Gul, whose first bid for the presidency in April was blocked by army-backed hardline secularists who contend that the AKP has a secret plan to dismantle Turkey's secular system.
Gul is set to be sworn in at parliament at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) before he formally takes over from outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in a ceremony closed to the press at 7:30 pm (1630 GMT).
Gul's wife Hayrunnisa, whose Islamic-style headscarf is seen by some as a defiance of secularism, will most likely not attend the two ceremonies in a bid to escape the spotlight, sources close to Gul said.
The AKP, which has its roots in a banned Islamist party, denies that it has an Islamist agenda and Gul has repeatedly pledged that his priority during his seven-year term will be to uphold the separation of state and religion.
But hardline secularists charge that with Gul as presidenct, the AKP will have completed its takeover of Turkey's top posts, allowing it to move ahead with its Islamist ambitions.
On the eve of Tuesday's vote, the head of the Turkish army warned that the secular system was under attack from "centres of evil seeking to systematically erode" it.
"The Turkish Armed Forces will not make any concessions... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic," Yasar Buyukanit said in a written message on the occasion of the August 30 Victory Day.
Liberals dismiss the secularists' concerns as "fear-mongering" by political rivals unable to match the AKP's rising popularity.
They see Gul's presidency as symbolic of the rise of the relatively poor, religiously conservative masses who form the backbone of the AKP -- people who have long been kept on the margins of politics by the secular establishment.
"Gul's election will be a turning point in our political history that could draw us one step closer to democratic maturity," the liberal daily Milliyet wrote.
Several newspapers said Gul would face a major test in dispelling fears that his term will increase the role of religion in public life.
"Gul's every step... will be under scrutiny by institutions and sections of society that are sensitive on secularism," the popular newspaper Vatan said. "Gul will neeed to be careful and make efforts to calm them."
When Gul first ran in April, the opposition blocked his election by boycotting the vote in parliament, while the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960, warned that it was ready to defend the secular regime.
The crisis forced Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call early general elections on July 22, from which the AKP emerged with a huge victory it saw as a popular mandate to re-nominate Gul.
The AKP has disowned its Islamist roots, pledged loyalty to secularism and conducted far-reaching reforms that stabilised the economy and ensured the start of Turkey's membership talks with the European Union.
