Gul, Turkey's new president
The foreign minister of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, is all set to become the 11th president of Turkey by the end of this month. Gul was fielded by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), but failed to win enough votes in the first, as well as the recent second, round of a presidential election on August 24, to become president.
Gul is expected to secure the presidency in the third round of voting in parliament on August 28, when he needs a simple majority to win -- which the ruling AK Party has.
In order to become president of Turkey, the candidate must have completed higher education, be at least forty years of age, and be a member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly or a Turkish citizen eligible to be a deputy. The president is elected for a term of office of 7 years, and cannot be elected for a second time.
The president is elected by a two-thirds majority of the total number of members of the Turkish Grand National Assembly by secret ballot. If a two-thirds majority of the total number cannot be obtained in the first two ballots, between which there must be at least a 3-day interval, a third ballot has to be held, and the candidate who receives the absolute majority of the votes of the total number of members is elected president.
If an absolute majority of the votes of the total number of the members is not obtained in the third ballot, a fourth ballot will be held between the two candidates who receive the greatest number of votes in the third ballot; if the president cannot be elected by an absolute majority of the total number in its ballot, a new general elections for the Turkish Grand National Assembly must be held immediately.
The parliament, which since 2002 has been dominated by pro-Islamic politicians from Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, elects the president in Turkey. In the first two rounds of voting, a candidate needs two-thirds of the lawmakers' votes to win, but by the third he needs only a simple majority. The opposition had boycotted the vote, depriving the ruling party of a quorum of two-thirds of lawmakers in the 550-seat parliament.
The Justice and Development Party led by Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan won parliamentary polls in July with 47 percent of the popular vote and a clear majority of seats in the Grand National Assembly. This was a significant improvement over the 34 percent share of the vote it won in 2002 -- an election that first brought the conservative party with Islamist roots to power.
The elections last month were called earlier than scheduled because of an inconclusive presidential vote in April, when the AK Party's nominee for president, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, faced severe opposition from Turkey's secular establishment led by the military.
Gul's election was blocked by technical maneuvers backed by the outgoing president and top army generals, notwithstanding the AK Party's majority in parliament. This time around, the party has again nominated Gul for president and, given the recent resounding popular mandate for AK Party, the army might not be able to block his election short of an improbable military coup.
Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional, republic whose political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West while continuing to foster relations with the Eastern world.
Turkey, the first secular republic with a majority Muslim population, is expected to soon have a president who prays in public and whose wife wears a headscarf as a manifestation of her religious convictions. This development could also be an opportunity to define secularism in the Muslim world as a political system ensuring coexistence of religion and secularism, rather than as an anti-religious ideology.
The bitter debate over the role of Islam in politics has exposed deep divisions in Turkey. Pro-secular groups say the ruling party, which came to power in 2002 with 34 percent of the votes, did not have a strong popular mandate even though an electoral quirk gave it 66 percent of the seats in parliament, a usual practice in "democracies." The showdown has also led to fears that the military could intervene and push the elected government out of power.
Now the Turkish premier has warned against military intervention in politics. In 1997, the military pushed the pro-Islamic prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, out of power, sending tanks into the streets in a message that any concessions on secularism would not be permitted. It staged three other coups between 1960 and 1980.
Gul is a highly respected diplomat who helped secure European Union accession talks for Turkey. Gul's first bid in April was blocked by the secular elite, which includes army generals, opposition leaders and judges, because of his past in political Islam. Elections were necessitated in Turkey because of the turmoil following the opposition by the so-called secular people to stall Gul's accession to presidency. His opponents are also objecting to the fact that his wife wears a scarf over her head.
An ally of USA and a Nato member, Turkey is also a candidate for EU membership. Turkey has undergone key reforms in order to enter the EU. Under a Gul presidency, Turkey will hopefully continue to combine tolerance with tradition. This would open the way for secularism in the Islamic world that concerns itself with protecting individual freedom and pluralism instead of being preoccupied with debates over issues such as headscarves.
Turkey's election of a conservative Muslim president need not be seen as a deviation from its secular ideals. It is a much-needed embrace of a path different from that of radical Islam as well as radical secularism. The current office-holder, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, is the 10th president since May 16, 2000, whose term expired on May 16, but he will act as president until a successor has been chosen.
The founder of modern Turkey, Ataturk, was an army officer who established the republic in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, giving the vote to women, restricting Islamic dress, and replacing the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet. Wearing an Islamic headscarf, as Gul's wife does, is illegal in government offices and schools. But Islam remains a powerful and attractive alternative for many Turks in this predominantly Muslim nation of more than 70 million.
For too long, the Muslim world has been polarized between secularists who want all public manifestations of Islamic religion banished from their countries and Islamists who insist on reverting to the Islamic way of life. This polarization cannot come to an end without secularists approving the practice of religion.
Although the AK Party grew out of a succession of Islamist parties banned by Turkish courts, it describes itself as a moderate conservative party rather than an Islamist one. Although both Erdogan and Gul are practicing Muslims who were once active in the Islamist movement, their first stint in office reflected an effort to distance themselves from Islamist politics. Under Erdogan, Turkey pursued European Union membership, maintained close ties with the United States and Israel, and attained new levels of economic prosperity.
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