Gul seeks support on Turkey presidency

ANKARA, Aug 15 (Reuters) Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sought the support of trade unions and business leaders today for his bid to become president, but newspapers said there were tensions with the country's secular elite.

Parliament will hold a series of votes for the presidency starting on Monday. Gul is expected to win in the third round on August 28 when he needs a simple majority in the 550-member parliament, where his ruling AK Party has 341 seats.

Gul is a respected statesman who as foreign minister helped secure the launch of Turkey's European Union entry talks, but the secular elite, including powerful army generals, dislike his Islamist past and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf.

''The constitution will be our guide,'' Gul said in televised remarks after talks with the labour union Turk-Is, echoing pledges he made yesterday to respect secularism if elected.

But his candidacy poses a direct challenge to the powerful military, which helped derail his first bid to become head of state in April with a statement warning of pervasive Islamisation in Turkey and signalling its opposition to Gul.

That move forced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to call early parliamentary elections which his AK Party decisively won.

The army has not commented on Gul's decision to run again. Gul told reporters on Tuesday he expected all institutions, including by implication the army, to respect the constitution.

Turkish financial markets weakened today on global factors and on uncertainty over the secular elite's reaction. The lira currency fell to its weakest level in two months against the dollar and stocks also tumbled.

TENSION ''Tension in the capital,'' said the anti-government daily Cumhuriyet today, noting the secularist opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) decision to snub Gul and to boycott state receptions if he is elected.

The liberal Radikal newspaper said the crux of the problem was Gul's wife's headscarf. Secularists fear the AK Party wants to lift a ban on the garment in public offices and universities, a move they fear would undermine secularism.

A columnist at Vatan newspaper, Rusen Cakir, said Gul's presidency would trigger tensions over the next year or two but added he did not expect a deep crisis.

Just 10 years ago, the military, with strong public backing, ousted a government in which Gul served because it was seen as too Islamist. This time, the situation is very different.

Erdogan's government is popular, having won 47 per cent of the vote in July's elections, and the economy is strong.

The army will closely watch both Gul and the government and would intervene if it felt secularism was in danger, many analysts say.

Erdogan and Gul deny any Islamist agenda.

''We have to wait and see whether the 47 per cent support for the AK Party in the election will help postpone a coup,'' wrote Ismet Berkan, editor-in-chief of Radikal.

Erdogan will tomorrow present his new cabinet list to outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist critic of the AK Party.

If Sezer vetoes any of the names, Vatan said, Erdogan will wait for the new president to take office and approve it.

REUTERS SLD BD1428