Turkish parliament votes on Gul presidency, again

ANKARA, Aug 20 (Reuters) Turkey's new parliament will begin voting today in a presidential election which Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is set to win months after the country's secular elite blocked the former Islamist's first bid.

His centre-right AK Party has been strengthened by a convincing win in July's general election, called early to defuse a crisis over the presidency, and Gul is widely expected to be elected this time around despite some fierce opposition.

Today's vote is the first of up to four rounds and Gul is likely to be elected in the third session on August 28 when he needs only a simple majority -- which the AK Party has.

Before that he needs two thirds of the votes to win, which is unlikely because the ultra-nationalist opposition MHP has fielded its own candidate, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, and the pro-Kurdish DTP has signalled it will not vote for Gul. Leftist DSP is also fielding its own candidate, Tayfun Icli.

The MHP has however made Gul's election more likely, just by agreeing to take part. The first vote in April was derailed by a a court ruling that two thirds of parliament had to be present -- impossible amid an opposition boycott.

''The first step towards the presidential palace,'' said a headline in Aksam newspaper, alongside a picture of Gul standing beside the Turkish flag.

The secularist army, which undermined the April vote with a sternly worded anti-government statement, has signalled it has said all it plans to say. As recently as 1997 the army ousted a government in which Gul served over its perceived Islamism.

Turkey's financial markets, which had been troubled by the dispute that derailed Gul's first election bid, were this time focused on volatility in global markets with the election regarded as a foregone conclusion.

The lira firmed to 1.3405 against the dollar in early interbank trade, extending gains on Friday in a recovery from a 5 per cent slide on Thursday.

VOWS IMPARTIALITY Gul says he backs secularism but opposition from the secularist elite remains fierce, in part because his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. Some critics fear he wants to break down the division between state and religion.

The opposition CHP has said it will boycott Gul's presidential receptions and will again be absent for the vote.

A Gul presidency will make the next government's job easier as it will no longer have to get laws and appointments past President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who frequently vetoed their legislation, such as a wide-ranging welfare reform.

One of the new president's first tasks will be to approve Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's new cabinet as incumbent Sezer, a secularist, declined to review the list last week.

Gul, the mild-mannered English-speaking architect of Turkey's EU bid, spent last week seeking support from civil society groups.

Gul, who has lived in Saudi Arabia and Britain and has good relations with foreign leaders, has said he will be an impartial president and try to represent all Turks.

He will quit the AK Party, where he has been number two, but commentators say he will need to prove his independence.

''To prove himself independent from the AK Party he may veto some of their measures. ... To make sure that he looks independent of the government,'' said Ayse Ayata, political science professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University.

REUTERS SW KP1207