August 15, 2007	Wednesday	Sha’aban 1, 1428

ANKARA: The ten-day campaign for election of the 11th president of the Turkish Republic kicked off last Friday, but the names of the candidates are still unknown. The name of Abdullah Gul, minister for foreign affairs, remains on top of the aspirants list. However, there is growing speculation that a more moderate leader may be nominated through multi-party consensus.

Based on the current constitution, the president is elected by 66 per cent of the members of parliament. Attendance of two-thirds of the total number of MPs is required to have a quorum during the first two rounds of voting.

If there is no winner, two additional rounds are provided for in the constitution, during which a simple majority among the MPs present can elect the new president. If these rounds are also inconclusive, the General Assembly is dissolved and new legislative elections are proclaimed.

The sessions are scheduled for August 20, 24, 28, and 30. The new president will take his functions the day following his election.

The presidential election was initially planned for last April, but the first round was annulled by decision of the Constitutional Court, and early legislative elections were held on July 22. At the time, the only candidate for the post was Abdullah Gul, a leader of the Islam-rooted Justice and Development (AK) Party, whose candidature had sparked massive popular protests and the fury of the military General Staff. The head of the General Staff issued a memorandum, equivalent to an ultimatum, warning that the armed forces would take measures to secure the secularist traditions of the country, should Gul be appointed.

The legislative poll in July gave 46.7 per cent of the vote to AKP and enabled it to form a new government for the next five years. The results are seen by many as a blank cheque to AKP to have its own candidate elected. But a wind of moderation seems to currently be blowing the sails of the party.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister and leader of AKP, does not want to begin his new term with domestic upheaval at a time when he is facing serious challenges home and abroad, particularly in resisting invasion of northern Iraq, drafting a new constitution, seeking better relations with the United States and France, and unblocking negotiations for Turkey’s membership of the European Union.

His strategy is likely to be to appease the nationalistic opposition and the military by proposing one or more candidates, one of whom could be appointed by consensus. He showed his cards last week in securing election of Koksal Toptan as speaker of the parliament. Toptan, an AKP deputy, is a moderate politician. The opposition Republican Peoples (CH) Party together with the Democratic Left (DS) Party with which it formed a coalition, the Nationalist Action (MH) Party, and the Democratic Society (DT) Party would rather see someone like him at the helm of the state.

There is, however, an obstacle to this strategy: Abdullah Gul in person. He is firmly convinced that the overwhelming victory of his Islamist party last month is a confirmation that he should be the next president. Most of the AKP key party members are of the same opinion.

Erdogan will have to show an iron fist to impose his candidate, who will be chosen on Monday evening, but whose name will be revealed on Tuesday or Wednesday. Party spokesmen play down rumours that old-time comrades Erdogan and Gul are having a row over this issue. But the Prime Minister asked AKP MPs last weekend to hand him blank signed nominations for Monday’s meeting. He will fill the name.

The AKP has 341 of the 550 seats. The electoral process allows for Gul’s election by the third or fourth round. At that stage the quorum could be reached with AKP votes only, and the governing party could provide the majority among MPs present at the session, a requirement for the presidential appointment.

CHP/DSP, with 111 deputies, has announced it will boycott the election if the candidate is not to its liking, but MHP and DTP will participate. They will, however, vote against such a candidate. Their participation will make it possible for the process to begin as planned.

Dr Abdullah Gul, 57, an economist by training, worked between 1983 and 1991 for the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Those were his formative years in Islamist society and politics.

He entered Turkish politics on his return to the country in 1991, and in 2001 co-founded AKP, together with Erdogan. After the party’s victory in 2002, he was appointed prime minister until March 2003, when he stepped down in favour of Erdogan and became deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

In spite of his religion-backed political convictions, he displayed a moderate attitude during his tenure, and is the architect of the rapprochement with the European Union.

In this light, his appointment as head of state does not represent a high risk for secularist Turkey, although he was a minister in the Islamist party ousted by the military in 1997. The actual point of controversy is his wife, Hayrunisa, who wears a headscarf, a distinctive sign of allegiance to Islam.

More than 90 per cent of all Turks believe they are Muslims, but only 15 to 19 per cent of women admit they wear a headscarf. This attire is forbidden in public administrations and schools. It was over this issue that Mrs Gul in 1988 sued Ankara University before the European Court of Human Rights for having been expelled from the institution when she insisted keeping her scarf. The ECHR eventually rejected her complaint.

Although Erdogan has, numerically, the power to impose Gul as president, he is sensitive to the secularist tradition of the country and has repeatedly assured the citizens of his adherence to Kemalist principles. The appointment of Toptan as speaker goes in this direction. Not only is he non-Islamist, his wife does not wear a headscarf. Many expect that the president’s wife will also be dressed in secularist fashion.

To help the process advance, CHP/DSP have proposed the name of Murat Besesgioglu. Besesgioglu, labour minister in the government, has also a “clean” past in terms of mixing religion with politics. More importantly, his wife has never been seen in a headscarf and is credited with conducting a secularist-compliant social life.—Dawn/The IPS News Service