Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was elected the country's
president yesterday, the first former Islamist to take the post in
the secular but predominantly Muslim country's modern history.
Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said on Monday he saw
"centers of evil" seeking to undermine the secular republic, a
statement suggesting the army would not stand on the sidelines if
it saw the separation between religion and state threatened.
"Abdullah Gul in the third round obtained an absolute majority
and was elected the 11th president of Turkey with 339 votes,"
parliament speaker Koksal Toptan said after the vote.
The Islamist-rooted AK Party has 341 seats in the 550-seat
chamber. Two other candidates also stood for president.
Gul (C) is
surrounded by MPs during the third round of the presidential
elections at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, August 28,
2007.
Gul has established himself as a respected diplomat since the AK
Party was first elected in 2002, securing the launch of Turkey's
European Union entry talks. He pledges to be a leader for all
Turks, but he is not to the taste of a military that suspects the
AK Party of harboring a secret Islamist agenda.
Many observers expect Gul, who broke with an Islamist party in
1999, will try to avoid confrontation.
"You shouldn't expect radical moves with Gul as president. Both
his opponents, who are scared he might do so, will be surprised and
his supporters hoping for radical moves will be disappointed," said
academic expert Cengiz Candar.
After sworn in as president at the Parliamentary General
Assembly, Gul said that he would embrace all Turkish citizens
without discrimination.? "I will maintain my impartiality and
do everything in my power to ensure harmony among state
organs,"
"Secularism, one of the basic principles of the Republic, is a
social peace role as well as a model that liberalizes different
living styles in a democratic life which is a system of rights and
liberties," he underlined.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Gul's
election could give new impetus to the EU accession process.
The secular elite and Turkey's generals, who have ousted four
governments since 1960, are wary of Gul's Islamist past and alarmed
at the prospect of his wife wearing the Islamic headscarf in the
Cankaya presidential palace.
(China Daily via agencies August 29, 2007)
