Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives at the Justice and Development Party's
(AKP) offices in Ankara. Erdogan said Wednesday he would announce his
party's presidential candidate next week as the secular nation
nervously waits to see if the former Islamist will run himself.
(AFP) |
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he would announce his party's presidential candidate next week as the secular nation nervously waits to see if the former Islamist will run himself.
"I will announce it (the candidate) on the day when my party holds its parliamentary group meeting," Erdogan told reporters, adding that this would be either next Tuesday or Wednesday.
But he did not say whether he would be the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) candidate, a prospect that has struck at the heart of this Muslim country's secular identity, with 500,000 people rallying in Ankara over the weekend to urge the former Islamist to back off.
Although Erdogan has disowned his Islamist past and now describes himself as a "conservative democrat," opponents still suspect him of seeking a secret Islamist agenda.
The ten-day period to register presidential candidates ends at midnight next Wednesday. No one has registered so far.
Erdogan was speaking after the AKP's executive board gave him full authority at a day-long meeting to decide on their presidential candidate.
"I should underline straight away that no candidate names were discussed," Edibe Sozen, the AKP deputy chairwoman told reporters here after the eight-hour meeting.
"The AKP executive board has given the chairman full authority to finalize the process and consultations with civic bodies will continue until the last day of registration" of presidential candidates on April 25, she added.
The AKP candidate is virtually certain to win the race thanks to the party's comfortable majority in parliament, which elects the president.
An opposition leader who discussed the presidential elections with Erdogan Tuesday said he believed Erdogan would not run.
"I got the impression that he would not be a candidate," Mehmet Agar, head of the small center-right True Path Party, told the Sabah newspaper.
Opponents say that with Erdogan in the presidential palace, the AKP, which already dominates parliament and local administrations, will seize the last secular bastion of the state and advance an Islamist agenda.
Along with ceremonial duties, the president has the final word on appointing senior government officials and a right to reject bills enacted by parliament.
Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a hardline secularist whose seven-year term expires on May 16, has often put the brakes on the AKP.
He has sent back to parliament laws he considered breaches of the secular constitution and blocked the appointment of officials seen as Islamist government cronies.
The AKP, offshoot of a now-banned Islamist party, has disowned its roots, pledged commitment to secularism and carried out a series of democracy reforms to boost Turkey's bid to join the European Union.
But it has come under fire from those who say it is still pursuing Islamist ambitions.
Erdogan, a practicing Muslim who was once convicted for religious sedition, is strongly opposed to a long-standing ban on the Islamic headscarf in government offices and universities.
But he has failed to abolish it, wary of the secular establishment that sees the veil as a symbol of political Islam.
His government has also made unsuccessful attempts to criminalise adultery, restrict places that serve alcohol and ease access to universities for graduates of religious schools.
