DAR AL ISLAM - TURKEY: ERDOGAN TO NAME HIS CABINET - - - WILL ISLAMISTS BE SELECTED?!? I SAY YES...

Turkey: Islamist-Secular Tensions Loom As PM To Name Cabinet
By Jeffrey Donovan

August 6, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a mandate today from the country's president to form a new government, two weeks after his ruling, Islamist-rooted Justice and Development (AK) party won a decisive victory in parliamentary polls.

In April, Erdogan's decision to propose Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, whose wife wears the head scarf, as a candidate for the presidency sparked a major backlash from the secular opposition and military leaders. Erdogan was eventually forced to scrap the presidential vote and call early elections.

But following his AK party's landslide victory in those July 22 polls, Erdogan is now in the political driver's seat, with a solid majority in parliament to push through his agenda.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer tapped Erdogan today to form a new cabinet, two days after the new parliament was sworn in.

Clash With Secularists Ahead?

While he has 45 days to present a list for Sezer's approval, the prime minister is expected to move quickly to set up his cabinet -- perhaps within a week -- and then move on to the next challenge: parliament's election of a successor to the outgoing Sezer, a staunch secularist.

Does that mean Turkey faces another political crisis pitting the secular establishment against Erdogan's Islamist-inspired AK party?

British analyst David Barchard, of Ankara's Tepav policy institute, doesn't think so. "We're in much calmer waters now," he says. "For a start, it's clear that there will be a quorum, as far as we can judge, a two-thirds quorum for the holding of the elections. That means [the parliament] won't be obstructed that way."

With Gul making it clear that he still wants to be president, Barchard says Erdogan will be hard-pressed to deny his foreign minister a second chance to win the parliamentary vote to succeed Sezer as president.

"My personal view is that we will end up with Mr. Gul after not a very long presidential election, perhaps two or three rounds at the most. But it certainly won't take more than a month to install him in office," Barchard says. "But there are other people who think some sort of compromise figure will be selected."

Barchard adds that the presidential vote could come within the next two weeks.

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1) Turkey: Islamist-Secular Tensions Loom As PM To Name Cabinet