Abdullah Gul is Turkey’s first president with a background in Muslim religious politics.  He was elected on Tuesday in a third round of voting after months of tension between the country’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), an offshoot of two Muslim parties, and the strongly secular politico-military establishment. 

The vote was conducted the day after the country’s military chief, General Yasar Buyukanit, warned that “centres of evil” were trying to undermine the secular state established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s. “Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey’s secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms every day.

The military will, just has it has so far, maintain its determination to guard social, democratic and secular Turkey.”  The military has intervened to oust four civilian governments since 1960.  While the general did not identify the culprit, it is assumed he was speaking of Gul, who is devout and whose wife wears the headscarf regarded by secularists as the badge of religious backwardness.

Gul gained the presidency because the AKP took 47 per cent of  the vote in early parliamentary elections called in July due to earlier threats issued by the military when he narrowly failed to gain enough support in his first round bid.

The secular military and civil elite argues that Gul will not use his power of veto to check the AKP government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan or the AKP-led legislature. The outgoing president Ahmet Necdet Sezer used his veto vigorously to block appointment of officials said to have a religious agenda as well as legislation deemed dangerous by the secular camp.

Gul’s presidency is a victory for Turkey's largely religious conservative majority over the “deep state”, the upper ranks of the armed forces.