Democracy in Turkey

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul failed to win enough votes in the second round of a presidential election on Friday, an AK Party deputy told Reuters, but is expected to clinch the post next week.

Gul, a highly respected diplomat who helped secure European Union-accession talks for Turkey, is distrusted by Turkey's military and secular elite because he served as a minister in an Islamist party chased from power in 1997.

In Turkey, the president is elected by parliament.

Friday's vote was the second of up to four rounds. Gul is expected to be elected in the third session on August 28 when he no longer needs two-thirds of the votes but a simple majority -- which the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party has.

It was not clear how many votes Gul had received in the 550-seat chamber. Two opposition candidates also stood.

CNN Turk television said votes were being recounted because of an appeal.

The NATO-member country of 74 million people is predominantly Muslim but is governed by a secular constitution.

The AK Party is accused of seeking to undermine a separation of religion and state dating back to the founding of the republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The party denies the charges and points to its EU reforms and pro-business record in office.

Turkey's financial markets, troubled by months of political turmoil, were this time focused on volatility in global markets with the election regarded as a foregone conclusion.

Gul says he backs secularism but opposition from the secularist elite remains fierce, in part because his wife wears the Muslim headscarf, seen by secularists as a provocative symbol of religion. The scarf is banned in public offices.

Few expect the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960, to intervene directly after strong public statements earlier this year appear to have backfired and helped secure more votes for the AK Party in parliamentary polls.

The army is unlikely to sit by quietly if they perceive that secularism is coming under threat, analysts and politicians say.

"There won't be a problem with a Gul presidency in terms of the armed forces if the principles of secularism and national unity are preserved," Fikret Bila, a leading Turkish columnist, told a discussion panel on broadcaster CNN Turk.

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, a staunchly secular party with close ties to the army, boycotted the vote and has vowed to boycott events hosted by Gul.

Failure to elect Gul earlier this year sparked fresh parliamentary elections, which the AK Party handsomely won.

If Gul, 56, wins as expected, it would be the first time in modern Turkey's history that the post has been filled by a former Islamist.

In Turkey, the president can veto laws and appointments of officials, and name judges. The post carries great moral weight because it was first held by the country's revered secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan plans to present his new cabinet list to the president as soon as his close ally is sworn in next week. Erdogan has pledged to speed up EU reforms and make sweeping changes to the constitution, written by a military regime in the 1980s