Last week Istanbul turned red as Ankara two weeks ago, with thousands of people demonstrating against candidacy for the presidency of the Foreign Affair Minister Abdullah Gul –an Islamic moderate. A crowd made of 200 thousand up to 1 million people, coming from all over the country, went to the European part of the street and met in the enormous Caglayan square, waving the Turkey flag and chanting slogan in defense of secularity.

 

 The demonstration was the climax of three days events, started last Friday at the Parliament, with the missed election of Gul at the first ballot. As a result of it, the opposition made an appeal to the Constitutional Court and the heads of the army gave a warning to the Justice and Development Party(Akp), the party of the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Meanwhile, the division between the “two Turkeys” becomes wider and wider and the possibility to call an early election becomes more and more probable.

The demonstration. The protest has been organized by hundreds of Non Governmental Organizations by bringing together that part of the country that rejects the idea of having an Islamic president, being him Gul or Erdogan. “Presidency is secular and will keep being secular” chanted the protesters, while the red sea filled the streets of the Bosporus metropolis. “Those people believing in Turkish democracy are here today” said Fazilet, a university student who was demonstrating together with her friends. On the 14^th of April, in Ankara, there was the spectre of the candidacy of Erdogan, the prime minister who during his 5 years mandate promoted many reforms to bring Turkey towards the European Union. In order to avoid any possible institutional struggle, the Akp decided that its candidate to precidency should be Gul, 56 years old, who is the Foreign Affairs Minister, appreciated in diplomatic circles. Since the Akp has a wide majority in the parliament, with 355 seats out of 550, at the moment Gul would not have any rivals. Despite he assured that he would respect the secularism of the republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Gul was not able to convince enough members of the opposition in order to be elected at the first ballot, that requires the vote of two third of MPs. The voting session took place on Friday and the candidate president obtained only 357 votes, ten less those necessary.

The boycott of the opposition. According to procedure, the two third approval rule can be applied to the second ballot as well, (that will take place on Wednesday, May 2^nd), while third and forth ballot require 276 votes. If there will not be any candidate from any other party, theoretically, it would be enough for Gul to hold out until the third vote.

But the situation started to worsen when the main movement of the opposition, the same Republican Party (Chp) belonging to Ataturk, the most tireless party in promoting division between politics and religion boycotted the vote on purpose. Its objective was to have less than 367 MPs at the assembly. They could meet their goal thanks to the help of two minor parties of the opposition.

Thanks to a new interpretation of the procedure rules, Chp made an appeal to the Constitutional Court, asking for the annulment of the voting, because the quorum of two third of present voters has not been reached. In this case, general elections scheduled for the 4^th of November, would be anticipated and the president of republic would be elected by the new parliament. The Chp hopes to gain seats with the elections and to participate in the presidential game with more chances. But for Akp, the request made by the opposition is absurd. While the Constitutional Court (whose 7 members out of 11 are elected by the current president of republic Ahmet Sezer, who is a strong defender of secularism) promised to return a verdict before the election of the 2^nd of May, the idea of early elections becomes more and more concrete as the only way to overcome this difficult situation.

The warning of the army. The main concern of observers is the clear position taken by the military forces who traditionally defend secularism of the country, more than the demonstrations in Ankara e Istanbul.

On Friday, few hours after the poll, the Chief of Staff Yasar Buyukanit talked about the “strong obstinacy” of the army in defending the principles of the republic. The general said that the festival of reading of the Koran is a sign of the “attempts to change the values of Turkey”. It was organized by the government and then deleted at the very last moment. It was due on April 23^rd, the republic day and this year there has been propaganda in defense of secularism. The warning has been useful for reminding that the army who did three coup d’etat in the late 50s and who is responsible for the toppling of the first Islamic government of the country in 1997 is looking at the situation with anxiety. And it doesn’t exclude to intervene again.