ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said presidential elections in May should not perturb Turkey's economic and political stability, newspapers reported Wednesday, as the question of whether he will run for the post has Ankara on tenterhooks.
"The country should not suffer tension" over the vote, Erdogan told journalists who accompanied him on a trip to Syria on Tuesday, the liberal daily Milliyet reported.
He recalled that political wrangling often upset financial markets in Turkey, which has only recently emerged from a severe economic crisis.
"Economic stability is of primary importance to us, we cannot allow ourselves to disrupt it," he said. "Democracy is just as important and we must find a balance between the two."
Erdogan, a former Islamist who disowned his past and now descibes himself as a "conservative democrat," has refused to say whether he will run for president, asserting that his Justice and Development Party (AKP) will announce its choice after the candidacy process formally begins on April 16.
The president is elected for a single seven-year term by parliament, where the AKP, a conservative party with roots in political Islam, holds a two-third majority that will allow it to easily elect the candidate of its choice.
Opponents say Erdogan is unfit for the job because he is a divisive figure with no true commitment to the fiercely guarded secular system of this overwhelmingly Muslim country.
The main opposition center-left Republican People's Party describes the presidency as the "last stronghold" of secularism and accuses the AKP of seeking to seize it to advance what it terms its secret Islamist agenda.
The influential military, the academic elite and the judiciary are also mistrustful of the AKP.
Pro-secular civic groups have called for a rally in Ankara on April 14 to protest against Erdogan's purported intention to succeed President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist who has often clashed with the government.
Erdogan has said he plans to meet major non-governmental groups, including business associations and trade unions, to seek their opinion on who should be Turkey's 11th president.
The election, which can run to three rounds, should be completed on May 15 at the latest, but a detailed timetable has yet to be determined.
Along with largely ceremonial duties, the president has a one-time right to reject bills passed by parliament and the final word on appointing senior government officials.
Sezer, a former president of the Consitutional Court, Turkey's highest judicial body, has often sent back to parliament laws he considered breaches of secularism and blocked the appointment of officials he saw as Islamist government cronies.
04/04/2007 08:48 GMT