Abdullah Gul's election yesterday as president of Turkey is a welcome affirmation of the country's democratic transformation and a clear indication that this will usher in a further period of political change. After his Justice and Development Party (AKP) won last month's general elections it had to decide whether to further aggravate relations with the armed forces after their alarmist objection to Mr Gul's Islamic background provoked the vote. Mr Gul's decision to stand again reflects a greater confidence that the AKP can manage a reform programme that would bring greater tolerance and pluralism to Turkish political life, replacing the stifling confrontation between it and the secularist and military elite.
Mr Gul has a powerful mandate to pursue this programme as president, along with the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The presidency is a ceremonial but influential position, redolent with symbolism concerning Turkey's political history. The secular state's founding father Kemal Ataturk was the first president and since then it has always been seen as the last line of defence for the values he represented. The president has veto power over legislation, appoints state functionaries and names judges. The outgoing president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, used these powers to the full against the AKP over the last five years, frustrating its legislative programme and leaving many civil service executive jobs vacant. He worked closely with the armed forces, assuming the AKP has a secret agenda of desecularisation.
In fact there is little evidence for that suspicion, given the AKP's pragmatic reform policies and its actual record in office. Mr Gul has been to the fore in formulating and negotiating Turkey's application to join the European Union, which his party sees as an essential means to modernise the country's social, economic and political structures. The AKP arose from the failure of previous Islamic movements and has combined these reforms with traditional religious observance in a modernising blend matching that of its popular support. The armed forces object especially to the fact that Mr Gul's wife Heyrunisa Osyurt wears the Islamic headscarf, which is banned in official buildings. Secularists see this as a sign of backwardness, echoing prejudices of the urban social elite towards the Anatolian heartland where the AKP's main support is to be found.
It is this latter intolerance that will now have to adapt to political change. Polls show 73 per cent of Turks believe it is normal to wear a headscarf; only 20 per cent oppose it. The AKP is pledged to change the constitution and Mr Erdogan will present his new cabinet today. He has managed this affair well by not becoming reliant on hardline nationalists and maintaining a good relationship with independent MPs from Kurdish areas. Mr Gul's victory reduces the risk that Turkey could be drawn towards intervening in Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish terrorists as the armed forces demand.