Istanbul, Turkey – Amid a sea of red Turkish flags, nearly 750,000 people poured into the streets of Istanbul on Sunday to demand that Parliament choose a president with no Islamist ties.
However, the Islamist-rooted ruling party insisted it would push ahead with the candidacy of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who was chosen last week as its standard-bearer in parliamentary voting scheduled to take place in the coming two weeks.
Secular opposition parties have mounted a legal challenge to a first-round vote last week by lawmakers, and Turkey’s powerful military, which considers itself the guardian of this overwhelmingly Muslim country’s secular system, Friday night issued a sharply worded warning against the accession of any leader who does not fully support secular principles.
Gul, a respected diplomat, rejects the Islamist label, and has pledged that he and his party will pursue a conservative – democratic agenda.
Sunday’s huge rally was organized before Gul was chosen last week as a compromise candidate in lieu of the more Islamist-minded Tayyip Recep Erdogan, the prime minister.
A similar but smaller rally was held two weeks ago in Ankara, the capital, to protest a prospective Erdogan candidacy.
Although Gul is considered a more moderate figure than Erdogan, his selection as president would consolidate the ruling Justice and Development Party’s hold on the executive and legislative branches of government.
Rally participants said filling the post with anyone from the ruling party would pose a threat to Turkey’s separation of religion and state.
