Turkish PM Erdogan drops out of presidential race to placate army

[Marcus Marulus]

Turkish PM drops out of presidential race to placate army

· Foreign minister is less provocative to secularists
· Opposition still threatens boycott of vote

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
Wednesday April 25, 2007
The Guardian

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ducked a confrontation with the country's secularists and generals yesterday when he announced that he would not be standing for the presidency.Instead he nominated the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, who has led Turkey's efforts to join the EU, and who is widely seen as a more palatable choice to opponents of the ruling Justice and Development party, of which Mr Gul is also deputy prime minister.
However, the decision is unlikely to resolve the chronic tension between Islamists, internationalists and reformers on one side, and nationalists, secularists and conservatives on the other.
The main opposition, the Republican People's party, threatened to boycott a parliamentary vote on the nomination on Friday, but most observers said such tactics were unlikely to block Mr Gul indefinitely. He is seen by Turkish political analysts as less likely to anger the military leadership, which sees itself as the guardian of the secular state.
General Yashar Buyukanit, the army chief of staff, said recently that the new president would have to uphold secular principles "not just in word but in essence", remarks generally viewed as a warning against Mr Erdogan's candidacy.
"The military has already made it clear that in a choice between Gul and Erdogan, it would prefer Gul," said Suat Kiniklioglu, the Ankara director of the thinktank The German Marshall Fund of the United States. "Erdogan has decided not to put more tension into the system. Gul understands the outside world better, he speaks English, and he can work with the establishment. He listens to the advice of the bureaucrats."
The Justice and Development party, a moderate Islamic group, has pursued mostly secular and reformist policies, but is still suspected by its opponents of having a secret Islamist agenda. The outgoing president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a fierce secularist, claimed that the very fabric of modern Turkey was under threat.
Yesterday, however, the 56-year-old Mr Gul went out of his way to reassure President Sezer, General Buyukanit and other secularists. "The president must be loyal to the main principles of the republic as stated in the constitution, he must be loyal to secular principles," he said.
Mustafa Ozyurek, the deputy chairman of the Republican People's party, said of Mr Gul's pledges: "His mindset is no different than Erdogan. There is no evidence he is sincerely loyal at heart to the secular republic and principles of Ataturk [founder of the state and first president of the republic]."
He said his party would boycott the voting, on Friday. His party says the new president cannot be elected with a quorum of less than two-thirds of parliament. However, political experts said the constitution required a two-thirds majority to win in the first two voting rounds and a simple majority in the third, with a quorum of a third of the 550-seat parliament.
"The opposition is full of it," said Soli Ozel, a professor of international relations, at Bilgi University, Istanbul. "Its entire tactics are geared to block Erdogan, but they don't have a game plan or even a candidate of their own."
The focus of opposition to Mr Gul's candidacy is likely to be his wife, Hayrunisa, who has appealed to the European court of human rights over a Muslim headscarf ban. A ban on Muslim attire on campuses and in public office has been enforced, and the sight of Turkey's first lady in a scarf would be anathema to many secularists.
Mr Erdogan's decision not to stand for the presidency also leaves him free to work on his party's campaign ahead of elections to be held by November. He is regarded as a more effective campaigner than Mr Gul, and the ruling party is increasingly nervous about losing its majority.

[source]

[Kernunnos]

Sh*** the smart guys are all on their side, while we are represented by le marais, the men from the bog.

[Marcus Marulus]

Turkey has been slowly, step by step, Islamified since 2002., when Erdogan's party ascended to power, winning the absoluted majority of seats in the Meclis (parliament). Now it's entirely different country from what it used to while country was run according to Ataturk's principles.

It does not seem though that Turkey is about to become "Islamist" in the full sense of word, but much more Islamic than before, that's for sure.

[Franze]

Yes, the evolution is clear, and the army can´t do anything without a civil war.