Abdullah Gül elected Turkish president

The election of a new Turkish president has cleared the way for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to form a new government, whose programme is to be announced during the first week of September.

Abdullah Gül, former prime minister and then foreign affairs minister in Erdogan’s government, was elected as Turkey’s 11th president on Tuesday (28 August) and took office in a low-key handover from outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Gül was elected on a simple majority of 339 votes in parliament’s third round of voting.

Unlike at the end of April, when the first attempt by Gül to become president threw Turkey into a political crisis, the parliament was quorate. As four months earlier, the opposition Republic People’s Party (CHP) boycotted the vote, claiming that the candidacy of Gül, whose wife wears a traditional Muslim headscarf, threatened Turkey’s secularism.

Gül’s election cleared the way for Erdogan to form a new cabinet and to get the president’s approval for his new line-up.

Erdogan and the AK Party (AKP) have emerged much strengthened from the political crisis, triggered this April by the CHP’s and the military establishment’s disapproval of Gül’s bid for the presidency. With the AKP’s share of the vote rising in 22 July’s general election to almost 47% (from 34% in 2002), Erdogan has a strong new mandate. For now the political mood is calm and the sense of crisis of the last four months has evaporated.

But observers both in and outside Turkey will be watching closely as the government gets to work. How the government’s new political reforms will affect the power of the military and the secular establishment, and whether Gül’s new position as president will encourage the AKP to attempt to loosen Turkey’s strict secularism are one set of issues being closely monitored.

The day before the vote, Turkey’s top general, Yasar Buyukanit, warned of "centres of evil" working against Turkey - a thinly-veiled attack on Gül, but for now his remarks have been seen more as sniping from the wings rather than presaging anything more.

Erdogan has already announced that experts are working on writing a new civilian constitution to replace the old one which has its roots in the military coup of 1980. But he has other equally pressing tasks at the top of his agenda, including the violence in the Kurdish south-east of the country - and the question of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish columnist Yusuf Kanli wrote this week that Turkey was in the middle of a "battle for power…not solely related to the piece of cloth on Mrs Gül’s head". "The real battle in Turkey will start when the ruling AKP starts to move in two areas: one, to rearrange the power centres of Turkish political system; and two, to introduce a new policy outline for a resolution of the Kurdish problem," he added.

Erdogan is also expected to devote attention to revitalising Turkey’s EU membership bid. With the European Commission’s annual progress report due in November, the Turkish government will be keen to show that political reform is back on track. But given the tight timescale, it is open to doubt whether there will be any rapid moves on sensitive EU issues, including the reform or repeal of article 301 of the penal code, used to prosecute dozens of Turkish writers and journalists, and the rights of religious minorities.

But French President Nikolas Sarkozy’s recent statement that he will not block talks altogether will be welcome in Turkey. Sarkozy said he would only oppose opening chapters that were exclusively linked to EU membership but would not seek to freeze those chapters which could lead to either membership or close association.

Whether Erdogan will take any new initiative on the divided island of Cyprus or take steps to open trade with the Greek part of Cypriot are also open questions. His refusal in the past to open Turkey’s ports to Greek Cypriot vessels has caused eight chapters in the negotiations with the EU to be suspended. The two Cypriot leaders - Tassos Papadopolos and Mehmet Ali Talat - are to meet on 5 September, but this may be too soon for any change of diplomatic stance by Turkey.

• Kirsty Hughes is a freelance writer based in London.

The election of a new Turkish president has cleared the way for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to form a new government, whose programme is to be announced during the first week of September.

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