Turkish nationalists lift Gul's hopes for presidency

ANKARA, July 26 (Reuters) Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's hopes of becoming Turkey's next president received a boost today when the leader of the ultra-nationalist party was quoted saying his MPs would attend the vote in parliament.

Gul's first bid to become president failed in May after opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary vote, depriving him of a quorum. They objected to him becoming head of state because of his Islamist past and his wife's headscarf.

The deadlock over the presidential contest then forced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to call early parliamentary elections that his ruling centre-right AK Party comfortably won on Sunday.

The AK Party has 340 seats in the 550-member chamber, fewer than the 367 needed for voting on a presidential candidate to be valid, hence the importance of the opposition's stance.

''We will be there in the chamber to ensure a quorum. But whether we vote or not is up to us,'' the Aksam newspaper quoted Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Action (MHP), as saying in an interview.

''The AK Party has come to power again with the will of the people. It can choose the person it wants for the presidency, it is completely their decision,'' said Bahceli.

In a separate interview for the Milliyet daily, Bahceli was quoted as saying: ''Consistency requires us to attend. Whom the AK Party chooses as its candidate does not interest us.'' The MHP, which was not represented in the previous parliament, won 71 seats in last Sunday's election, enough to ensure the AK Party secures the two thirds quorum during voting.

The AK Party does not need the MHP to vote for its candidate as it has enough deputies of its own to ensure Gul's election on a third round of voting when it needs only a simple majority.

Yesterday, Gul signalled he would probably make a fresh bid for the presidency, despite continued resistance from Turkish secularists including the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which vetoed the voting in May.

The secularists, who include powerful army generals, fear Gul as president would chip away at Turkey's separation of state and religion.

Gul, a respected diplomat and a key architect of Turkey's bid to join the European Union, says their fears are unfounded.

REUTERS LPB RAI1253