ANKARA - Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling party on Wednesday put forward a moderate figure with no Islamist past as their candidate for the next parliament speaker.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted the name of Koksal Toptan to run in elections to be held Thursday in parliament, the Anatolia news agency reported.
A lawyer by profession, the 64-year-old Toptan served as state, education and culture ministers under centre-right conservative parties before joining the AKP. He was elected to parliament in the November 2002 elections.
He served as the head of the parliamentary justice commission in the last legislative term before the July 22 elections that brought the AKP to power for a second five-year term.
Apart from Toptan, there are so far two other candidates in the running for the post of parliament speaker.
The right-wing Nationalist Action Party, the second largest opposition party, nominated Tunca Toskay, a former state minister responsible for foreign trade.
Independent lawmaker Kamer Genc, who served as a deputy parliamentary speaker in the 1990s, is the other candidate.
The deadline for announcing candidates for the parliamentary speaker elections, ends Wednesday midnight (2100 GMT).
Once parliament elects its new speaker and its deputies, its will then have to vote for its next head of state.
Turkey was plunged into turmoil when the AKP failed in April and May to install Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as president. They were blocked by a harsh secularist campaign that accused the party of seeking to undermine the Muslim country's secular order.
The crisis deepened when the military warned that it was ready to defend the republic's basic secular tenets and Erdogan was forced to bring elections forward from November.
Gul has indicated that he could run for the presidency again but AKP sources and Turkish newspaper reports said Wednesday that the party was divided over whether or not to renominate him. Some members fear that would provoke fresh tensions with secularist forces and the military.
08/08/2007 18:29 GMT