05/10/2007

Turkish Presidential Crisis

Parliament Votes to Let the People Decide

Turkish presidents, traditionally, are elected in parliament -- but parliament has just voted to give that decision to the people. Behind the reform is an old conflict between Muslims and Turkish secularists.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and his Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül are old friends. Gül was a candidate for president until last Sunday.

DPA

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and his Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül are old friends. Gül was a candidate for president until last Sunday.

The Turkish parliament on Thursday approved a major amendment to its constitution to allow the public -- as opposed to legislators -- to vote directly for president.

The amendment must be signed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer to become law, but it sailed easily through parliament with 370 votes out of 550.

Sezer is among critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) who say the law was rushed through without enough debate. He's hinted at a veto. It's true that the Islamic-rooted, center-right AKP promoted the amendment after its presidential candidate, Abdullah Gül, lost two divisive votes in parliament. The AKP has broad support in Turkey, and its leaders believe Gül can win a popular election.

A general parliamentary election is set for July 22. The parliament postponed a possible date for the presidential election until afterwards. Some critics say Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan knows the amendment is unlikely to come into force before the general election; they argue he's just trying to impress voters, who by and large -- according to polls -- want to vote directly for president.

The president in Turkey controls the military, and Gül's candidacy last month tore open old wounds between conservative Muslims in the AKP on the one hand, and secularists on the other -- especially secularists entrenched in the military. The army has issued a veiled threat to the government that it may stage a coup if a candidate with Islamist roots -- such as Gül -- is elected president.

msm/ap

Article...

For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol.

Post to other social networks: