ANKARA - Turkish lawmakers Tuesday began a decisive round of voting in presidential elections expected to install Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as the secular republic's first head of state with an Islamist past.
His prospective election is seen as a major victory for the ruling Islamist-rooted party against army-backed hardline secularists who blocked Gul's first bid for the presidency earlier this year, arguing that the party has secret plans to dismantle Turkey's secular system.
The 56-year-old Gul is virtually certain to win and should easily beat the two other contenders, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu from the right-wing Nationalist Action Party and Tayfun Icli from the centre-left Democratic Left Party.
The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) commands 340 seats in the 550-member parliament, more than the simple majority of 276 votes required to elect the president in Tuesday's third-round vote.
The party had failed to garner the two-thirds majority required in the first two rounds of voting, which were held last week.
The AKP, which has its roots in a banned Islamist party, categorically denies that it has an Islamist agenda and Gul has repeatedly pledged that if elected, his priority during his seven-year term will be to uphold the separation of state and religion.
But hardline secularists charge that with Gul at the presidency, the AKP will have completed its takeover of Turkey's top posts, allowing it to move ahead with its Islamist ambitions.
They are also irritated by the fact that Gul's wife Hayrunnisa wears the Islamic headscarf, which they see as a symbol of defiance of the secular system.
On the eve of Tuesday's vote, the head of the Turkish army warned that the secular system was under attack from "centres of evil seeking to systematically erode" it.
"The Turkish Armed Forces will not make any concessions ... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," Yasar Buyukanit said in a written message on the occasion of the August 30 Victory Day.
Liberals dismiss the secularists' concerns as "fear-mongering" by political rivals unable to match the AKP's rising popularity.
They see Gul's presidency as symbolic of the rise of the relatively poor, religiously conservative masses who form the backbone of the AKP -- people who have long been kept on the margins of politics by the secular establishment.
"Gul's election will be a turning point in our political history that could draw us one step closer to democratic maturity," the liberal daily Milliyet wrote.
Several newspapers said Gul would face a major test in allaying fears that his term will increase the role of religion in public life.
"Gul's every step ... will be under scrutiny by institutions and sections of society that are sensitive on secularism," the popular newspaper Vatan said. "Gul will neeed to be careful and make efforts to calm them."
If elected, Gul will take up his post very quickly.
He will be sworn in shortly after the result is announced and will then formally take over from incumbent President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose term expired in May.
In a bid to escape the spotlight, Gul's wife will most likely not attend the swearing-in and handover ceremonies, sources close to Gul said.
When Gul first stood for the presidency in April, the opposition blocked his election by boycotting the vote in parliament, while the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960, warned that it was ready to defend the secular regime.
The crisis forced Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call early general elections on July 22, from which the AKP emerged with a solid victory it saw as popular support to re-nominate Gul.
The AKP has disowned its Islamist roots, pledged loyalty to secularism and conducted far-reaching reforms that stabilised the economy and ensured the start of Turkey's membership talks with the European Union.

08/28/2007 12:39 GMT