Turk PM calls court ruling harms democracy

ANKARA, May 2 (Reuters) Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said today a decision by the Constitutional Court to annul the first round of Turkey's presidential election amounted to ''a bullet aimed at democracy''.

''The election for president in the parliament has been blocked. It has made it almost impossible for the parliament to elect a president in the future. The Constitutional Court decision is a bullet aimed at democracy,'' Erdogan told a televised gathering of his ruling AK Party.

Yesterday Turkey's top court, dominated by secularists uneasy about the AK Party's Islamist roots, upheld an opposition appeal to annul last Friday's vote, saying 367 deputies must be in the chamber at the time of voting. The AK Party holds 352 members of the 550 seats in parliament.

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