Devout Muslim prevails in Turkey
ISTANBUL, Turkey – A devout Muslim won Turkey’s presidency Tuesday after months of confrontation with the secular establishment, promising to be impartial and praising the idea that Islam and the state should be separate.
Still, in a sign that tension could lie ahead, top generals did not attend the swearing-in ceremony in parliament of Abdullah Gul, their new president and commander in chief. Local media interpreted their absence as a protest against the 56-year-old Gul, the former foreign minister in Turkey’s Islamic-oriented government.
Gul, who has tried to engineer Turkey’s entry into the European Union with sweeping reforms, received a majority of 339 votes in a parliamentary ballot in the capital, Ankara. The secular opposition had thwarted Gul’s earlier bid for the presidency, but his triumph this time was assured by a ruling party that won a second term in general elections last month.
The burly and affable new president was careful to reach out to the many Turks who suspect he has a secret Islamic agenda.
“In democracy, which is a system of rights and liberties, secularism, one of the core principles of our republic, is as much a model that underpins freedom for different lifestyles as it is a rule of social harmony,” Gul said. “I will continue my path, in a transparent and fully impartial manner, embracing all my citizens.”
Gul, a former practitioner of political Islam who later cast himself as a moderate, vowed to campaign for gender equality and the rule of law, and he said “change and diversity” were not things to be feared.
He also praised the military as a necessary deterrent and a symbol of independence, a day after the military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, warned that “centers of evil” were plotting to corrode secular principles crafted nearly a century ago by Turkey’s revered founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The military has ousted four governments since 1960, and an initial presidential bid by Gul was derailed over fears that he planned to dilute secular traditions. Some commentators said the generals’ failure to show up for Gul’s oath-taking was ominous.