Turkish Presidential Pick Sets Up Clash, Again

ISTANBUL, Aug. 14 — Turkey’s governing party has chosen Abdullah Gul, an economist and a practicing Muslim, as its candidate for president, officials said Monday, a move that places the party and its pious followers on a collision course with Turkey’s secular elite.


The nomination of Mr. Gul, 56, a moderate politician who has pressed for his country’s entry into the European Union, was announced by officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party late on Monday. His confirmation, which is expected in several rounds of parliamentary voting this month, is likely to change the country’s course, with an emerging Islamic middle class overtaking the secular elite who have controlled the Turkish state since its beginning in 1923.

The country’s secular establishment blocked Mr. Gul’s candidacy for the same job this spring, saying that he was too religious to take Turkey’s highest secular post. The move precipitated early elections last month.

Turkey is a member of NATO and a strong American ally, so its stability is important in a troubled region. While its citizens are overwhelmingly Muslim, it is a democracy that is staunchly secular, and its president is at the very heart of that system, controlling appointments of judges, and presiding as commander in chief over the military.

Voting begins next Monday. In that round, Mr. Gul would need 367 votes, two-thirds of the 550-member Parliament, to win approval. If he is not confirmed in two rounds, he will probably win in a third round on Aug. 28, in which, under Turkish law, just 267 votes are needed. His party has 341 seats.

The party is expected to discuss the nomination with other political parties on Tuesday.

“Their insistence on Gul’s nomination, after all of the crisis it caused, shows how determined they are to convert the modern secular Turkish state into a religion-based administration,” said Onur Oymen, deputy chairman of the secular Republican People’s Party, in a telephone interview. “This is not acceptable.”

Secular Turks say the rank and file of Mr. Gul’s party is settling deeply into the Turkish bureaucracy, bringing a religious tinge to the state. The party’s supporters, meanwhile, say it has done more than secular parties to pull Turkey closer to Europe and to modernize the state.

The election last month resulted in a landslide victory for Mr. Gul’s party, which took nearly 50 percent of the vote, the highest proportion in Turkey since the 1960s, and the party appears to have taken that outcome as a mandate to push Mr. Gul for a second time.

But many secular Turks fear for the future of their country if the governing party controls the presidency as well as the prime minister’s post and the speaker of Parliament.

In a conciliatory acceptance speech after the election, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated he would take secular Turks into account when forming the government. But Mr. Gul’s candidacy did not seem to be something the governing party was willing to compromise on.

“Compromise is one thing, and giving in is another,” said Egemen Bagis, a member of Parliament from the governing party.

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul, and Sabrina Tavernise from Amman, Jordan