Turk court advised to reject poll challenge-reports

ISTANBUL, May 1 (Reuters) The rapporteur for the Turkish Constitutional Court has recommended the court rejects an opposition challenge to the presidential election, newspaper reports said today.

The country's top court is due to rule on Tuesday or tomorrow on the opposition request to suspend the presidential election.

Suspension could trigger an early parliamentary poll and, in the view of many analysts, help defuse tensions between secularists, including the army, and the government.

The newspaper reports said the court's rapporteur -- who acts as a prosecutor in such cases -- Hikmet Tulen had recommended the bid by the main opposition Republican People's Party be rejected. The recommendation is not binding.

The court said it will start deliberating on the challenge at 2 pm (1630 hrs IST).

Tayyip Erdogan, facing his biggest political crisis since becoming prime minister in 2003, appealed for national unity yesterday after the crisis pitted secularists against his Islamist-rooted government.

Turkish financial markets recorded their biggest falls in a year yesterday and the lira currency extended its losses today. Markets have been rattled by the armed forces' threat to intervene in the presidential poll process.

The secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, oppose the ruling AK Party's candidate for president Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. They say he will undermine the division between the secular state and religion.

Parliament, in which the ruling AK Party has a big majority, elects the president in predominantly Muslim Turkey.

Parliament is due to hold a second round of voting in the presidential election tomorrow after Gul failed to secure enough votes at the first round on Friday.

The opposition wants the election suspended because it says there were not enough deputies in the parliament chamber during the first round of voting to make it valid.

Gul is not expected to win the presidency until the third round on May 9. He is the only candidate standing.

As many as one million people protested in Istanbul on Sunday.

Many accused the government of planning an Islamist state and criticised it for failing to consult the opposition on the choice of president, who carries great symbolic weight and has important veto and appointment powers.

Istanbul's governor has enforced a security clampdown on the centre of Istanbul around Taksim Square to prevent May Day rallies today. The governor has not given authorisation for protests in the city centre.

Thousands of police have been stationed across the city. Metro stations, ferries and bus routes have been shut and travel across the Bosphorus straits limited.

The disruption forced the Istanbul Stock Exchange to delay trading.

REUTERS RJ BD1300