ANKARA—An early parliamentary election will ease tensions in Turkey, the AK Party said on Wednesday, after an increasingly bitter standoff between the Islamist-rooted government and the secular elite.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he wanted to hold the election on June 24 or July 1 after a row over a presidential vote that pitted his government against the army, which regards itself as the guardian of Turkey 's secular system.
Officials said the date was likely to be decided on Wednesday. The election had been due in November and the AK Party is expected to win it after five years of strong economic growth since it came to power in 2002.
The AK Party will also propose that the president is in future elected by voters and not by lawmakers.
"Bringing forward the general election will reduce uncertainty," Bulent Arinc, a senior AK Party member and parliamentary speaker, told a news conference. "(The decision) will meet our people's expectation for trust and stability."
Erdogan's decision could provide relief for Turkey 's financial markets which have suffered their biggest sell-off in a year over the last two days on fears of instability.
The political impasse has also raised concerns about Turkey 's negotiations to join the European Union.
Erdogan's government vowed to press on with a presidential vote in parliament after the Constitutional Court annulled the first round on Tuesday.
The opposition boycotted last week's presidential vote and said there were not enough deputies in parliament to make the vote valid. The AK Party's candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, is the only presidential candidate.
Secularists Win
"The parliamentary system has been blocked ... We are urgently going to the people. Our people will make the best decisions," Erdogan told a news conference on Tuesday night.
The AK Party will send to parliament on Wednesday a proposal to have the president elected directly by voters and not by lawmakers, a party deputy said.
The government has for months resisted pressure from the secularist establishment, including army generals and judges, to seek a consensus candidate for the presidential election.
The presidential post carries great symbolic weight in Turkey because it was first held by the revered founder of the modern republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The president also has veto and appointment powers and is head of the army.
The secularist elite fears that once the AK Party secures control of the presidency—the last key state institution still outside its grasp—it will chip away at the secular principles of the republic. The AK Party reject the allegation and point to their pro-Western record in office.
Last week the army rattled Turkey when it issued a statement reminding politicians that the military was the ultimate guardian of secularism and saying it was watching the parliamentary election of a new president with concern.
In remarks apparently aimed at the military, Erdogan said: "In democracies there is no better way of making warnings (to the government) than by ballot boxes."
The army has ousted four governments since 1960, the last in 1997 when it acted against a cabinet in which Gul served.
The government criticised the Constitutional Court, made up of secularist judges, for its decision to back the opposition.
"This undemocratic decision will give Turkey the image of a banana republic," Egemen Bagis, AK Party lawmaker and foreign policy adviser to Erdogan, told Reuters.
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