Gul fails in first round of presidential vote

ANKARA - Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the frontrunner to become Turkey's next president, failed to be elected in the first round of voting in parliament on Monday, the parliament speaker said.
Gul, the nominee of the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, garnered 341 votes from the 550-seat house, 26 short of the two-thirds majority of 367 needed in the first round.
The other two candidates, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu from the right-wing Nationalist Action Party and Tayfun Icli from the centre-left Democratic Left Party, received 70 and 13 votes, respectively.

08/20/2007 13:55 GMT