Turkey's Gul seeks support for presidential bid

By Staff
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ANKARA, Aug 14 (Reuters) Turkey's presidential hopeful Abdullah Gul will visit opposition leaders today to drum up support for his bid to be elected head of state, but faces hostility from secularists wary of his Islamist past.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party decided late yesterday to renominate Gul, the foreign minister, despite opposition from the powerful secular elite, including army generals.

Turkey's lira currency lost 2 per cent against the dollar and stocks also fell on investor fears of renewed tension over Gul's candidacy and global market jitters.

''I consulted my family and my circle, I am a candidate,'' the top-selling Hurriyet daily quoted Gul as saying at a meeting of the AK Party executive board that endorsed his bid.

Gul is expected to announce his candidacy formally later today after his talks with opposition leaders.

Secularists dislike Gul's Islamist background and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. They derailed an earlier AK Party bid in May to have parliament elect Gul, a move that sparked early parliamentary elections that the party won.

The centre-right, pro-business AK Party believes Gul, a gently spoken diplomat and architect of Turkey's bid to join the European Union, is the best man to succeed staunchly secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose mandate has now expired.

The party also says its victory in July 22 parliamentary elections gives it the moral and political right to re-nominate Gul and to show that elected politicians, not generals, run this largely Muslim but secular country of 74 million people.

The army ousted a government it deemed too Islamist just 10 years ago. Gul had served in that cabinet as a state minister.

ARMY FACTOR Analysts played down fears of a military intervention.

''The republican opposition can do little to stop Gul's presidency, given the AKP's overwhelming mandate, the legitimacy of the new government and Gul's huge popularity,'' said Ahmet Akarli, an economist at Goldman Sachs, in an investment note.

''The military would probably have to take a tactical step back and give the AKP and Gul the benefit of the doubt, as acting otherwise could prove counterproductive at this point.'' Echoing that view, Metin Heper, dean of the social sciences faculty at Ankara's Bilkent University, told Reuters the army needs public support in order to act in the political arena.

''I think the military would think twice before doing anything,'' he said.

But the army will watch the presidential election process closely. In April, it helped scupper Gul's first bid with a midnight Internet posting making clear its disapproval.

Initial reaction to Gul's candidacy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was predictably frosty.

''This name suggests not reconciliation but obstinate insistence (by the ruling party),'' Onur Oymen, a senior lawmaker of the staunchly secularist CHP, told the broadcaster CNN Turk.

Gul's first meeting today will be with Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Bahceli effectively opened the door to Gul's new bid for the presidency by saying his 70 MPs would attend the voting sessions in parliament, ensuring the government secures the necessary quorum of 367 deputies for the election to be valid.

The AK Party has 341 deputies in the 550-member assembly.

The first round of voting has been set for next Monday, but Gul is not expected to win until the third round on August 28 when he needs only a simple majority of votes in parliament.

REUTERS SBC KP1509

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