"Will Turkey Have an Islamist President?
By Michael Rubin
Posted: Friday, February 2, 2007
MIDDLE EASTERN OUTLOOK
AEI Online
Publication Date: February 2, 2007
While the campaigns have not officially begun, election season in Turkey is heating up. This spring, the Turkish parliament will select a president to replace current president Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose seven-year term ends on May 16, 2007. On or before November 4, 2007, Turks will head to the polls to choose a new parliament. Not only does this year mark the first since 1973--and 1950 before that--in which Turks will inaugurate a new president and parliament in the same year, but this year’s polls will also impact the future of Turkey more than perhaps any election in the past half century. If Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wins the presidency and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, also known as AKP) retains its parliamentary majority, Islamists would control all Turkish offices and be positioned to erode secularism and redefine state and society."
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