Erdogan Will Not Become President

Filed under: Political Islam, Secularism, Turkey — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on April 24, 2007 @ 3:57 pm CEST

The New York Times reports that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan will not seek the presidency. This is quite a surprising move, at least for me. I expected him to run. That being said, I think that for Turkey, for Erdogan and for his party this is the right decision: Erdogan is too controversial a figure. Instead of Erdogan, Turkey’s governing party has chosen Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its candidate

Gul was expected to win the post when lawmakers vote Friday in the 55-member Parliament, where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development party has a majority.

Erdogan said Gul would be a candidate who would be “embraced by all of Turkey.”

Now, that might seem to be a good decision, but, as I understand it, many Turks are not happy with this choice. Why not? Gül was prime minister before Erdogan: Erdogan wanted to become Prime Minister, but could not, and then Gül became Turkey’s PM. When Gül, however, was PM, Erdogan was the de facto Prime Minister. Erdogan ruled through Gül, many people would say.

For secularists there is no difference between Gül as President or Erdogan, again, as I understand it. Both are suspected of having Islamist tendencies. Ms. Erdogan and Ms. Gül both wear scarves.

In short: both are not (considered to be) secularists.

Expect more mass demonstrations in Turkey.

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1 Kahraman

April 24, 2007 @ 4:46 pm CEST

you are so wrong.
i do not think there will be any mass demonstrations.
some of the people who were in that demonstration wanted erdogan to continue as prime minister.
cause they thought he was doing a great job…