Word: gul
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...This isn't a matter of dress sense. Gul's nomination (and his wife's attire) has laid bare Turkey's deep divisions over the separation of religion and government. The protest was part of a much broader revolt by Turkey's self-described "secularists" against a popularly elected Islamic-leaning government that has held power-with considerable success-since November 2002. An ad hoc coalition of opposition parties, the military and parts of the judiciary, often referred to in Turkey as the "secular establishment," has in recent days derailed the presidential selection process in a standoff that underscores...
...That clash came to a head on May 1 when Turkey's Constitutional Court annulled the first round of elections in Parliament that would have made Gul President. Handpicked by his longtime ally Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Gul was ahead in the ballot, but the court, in a ruling that appeared to betray its secularist bias, upheld claims by Turkey's main secularist political party that the balloting was unconstitutional because a quorum wasn't present-no matter that the opposition engineered that shortfall by boycotting the vote, or that at least one President had previously been elected with...
...communiqué on the army's website warned: "The Turkish armed forces is one of the sides in this debate and the absolute defender of secularism. When necessary, [it] will display its stance and attitudes very clearly. No one should doubt that." The message didn't mention Gul by name, but the meaning was clear: the military reserved the right to intervene if Gul became President. Though condemned in all corners of the Turkish press, the military's gambit made the court ruling against the AKP "almost inevitable," according to a senior Western diplomat. In an interview with TIME, retired...
...ruling party, the AKP had a constitutional right to appoint one of its own to replace Sezer, and Erdogan came close to nominating himself for the job. In the end, he bowed out in the face of vigorous opposition from the military and the public, and picked Gul as a compromise candidate...
...Widely considered the more moderate of the two politicians, Gul speaks English, unlike Erdogan, and is even rumored to have a sense of humor. He is also well-known to Turkey's allies in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, and played a key role in presenting Turkey's case for membership to the E.U. Still, like most top AKP officials, Gul got his start in parties that were banned in the 1990s for flirting with political Islam. And secularists could not abide the idea that, as Turkey's First Lady, Gul's wife Hayrunnisa would be wearing the traditional Muslim...