ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan convened his cabinet Tuesday for the first time since his Islamist-rooted party won a decisive victory that will keep him in power for a second five-year term.
The government is expected to evaluate Sunday's early legislative elections that gave the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) 46.4 percent of the vote and a solid majority of 340 seats in the 550-member parliament.
With one of two voters picking the AKP, the election result is seen as major show of confidence in the party that faced a strong secular campaign accusing it of seeking to install an Iranian-style regime in the mainly Muslim country.
The AKP denies that it has secret agenda to replace the country's secular order and says it has disawoved its radical Islamist past to embrace the republic's fundamental principles and Western orientation.
Tuesday's meeting is likely to be the last one for Erdogan's current cabinet.
The charismatic 53-year-old handed his resignation to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer as a formality on Monday and was asked to stay on as caretaker until the new government is in place.
The newly elected parliament must be sworn in before the president gives Erdogan the mandate to form the government, and final official results must be announced before that.
Electoral authorities are expected to make the announcement on Thursday, which could allow the new parliament to hold its maiden meeting on July 31.
Erdogan has so far refused to reveal any plans for his new cabinet, but Turkish newspapers Tuesday said a reshuffle was likely.
In any case, Erdogan will have to come up with at least two new names to replace Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener and Trade and Industry Minister Ali Coskun, who did not run in Sunday's elections.
In a bid to rid itself of its Islamist image, the AKP fielded several new candidates, including well-known politicians from the centre-left and -right, women known for their liberal views, business people and economists.
Among them is Ertugrul Gunay, once an ideologue and a secretary-general of the staunchly secular Republican People's Party (CHP), former Merrill Lynch economist Mehmet Simsek, and Zafer Caglayan, the former head of the Ankara Chamber of Industry.
All three could get cabinet posts, the Turkish media said.
Erdogan said before the elections that his party was working on a new administrative structure to manage the country's booming 400-billion-dollar economy that would include a "coordinating minister" topping all economy-related portfolios.
Since it first came to power in 2002, the AKP has reduced inflation, maintained high growth and attracted record foreign investment, while also implementing successful social policies such as easing access to medical care and building cheap homes for the poor.
The AKP's economic perfromance is seen as a major reason for its electoral success; many analysts say a public backlash against the military, which had threatened the government and sparked snap polls, is another.
Erdogan was forced to bring the elections forward from November after his party twice failed to elect one of its own as president when the opposition boycotted the vote in parliament.
The crisis came to a head when the army warned that it was ready to act to defend the secular system and millions of people took to the streets in mass pro-secular protests.
07/24/2007 09:17 GMT