Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a hardline secularist, has often clashed with the government, vetoing laws he deemed anti-secular and blocking the appointment of officials he saw as Islamist government cronies.
Gul and Erdogan belonged to the Welfare Party of Turkey's first Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, whom the army forced from power in 1997.
But in contrast to Erdogan, Gul has stayed away from open confrontation with the secularist establishment on explosive issues such as the headscarf ban.
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