With the election of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to the Turkish presidency all but certain on Tuesday, many secularist opponents are calling for a more moderate stance against the former Islamist and his governing Justice and Development Party (AKP).For months, hardline secularists followed the cue of the opposition Republican PeopleÂ’s PartyÂ’s (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal to condemn GulÂ’s candidacy as part of a secret plan by the Islamist-rooted AKP to undermine TurkeyÂ’s secular regime. Despite repeated denials by Gul and the AKP and vows of loyalty to republican values, the country was plunged into crisis as millions took to the streets to protest against a former Islamist as president. Matters worsened when the army, which has toppled four governments in as many decades, stepped in with a threat to intervene to protect the secular system, which it said it considered under threat.
In a climate of mounting tensions and nationalism, the CHP led a boycott of the presidential vote during GulÂ’s first candidacy in April, robbing the house of the quorum it needed and forcing early general elections on July 22.
But a massive electoral victory by the AKP means that Gul’s election on Tuesday will be a mere formality, and many secularists are now angrier with the CHP leadership under Baykal than they are at the prospect of an ex-Islamist as the republic’s next president. “Baykal and his friends chose to transform the CHP into a nationalist party devoid of its traditional centre-left ideology,” complained Zulfu Livaneli, a prominent musician and author and a former deputy who served out his term as an independent after resigning from the CHP. “People were forced to choose between the AKP and a coalition comprising the CHP and the nationalists,” he said. “They felt that such a coalition would have spelled the end for Turkey.”