Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said yesterday he was withdrawing from the presidential election race after his AK Party failed to secure a quorum in parliament.
"After this ... my candidacy is out of the question," Gul told reporters in parliament.
Turkey is in political crisis after a wave of secularist protests demanding the withdrawal of his candidacy and alarm in the military at the prospect of a former Islamist as head of state and commander-in-chief.
The military establishment has issued a public reminder that it is the ultimate defender of the secular Turkish state. The military has removed four civilian governments in 50 years in a country which now hopes for EU membership.
The ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to obtain the presence of 367 members of parliament to be able to hold a vote on whether to elect Gul as president. He was the only candidate standing.
A first round vote was annulled last week by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that two-thirds of parliament, or 367 members, had to be present for it to be valid.
The court's decision came in response to an opposition party appeal.
Fighting back, the government organized a vote rerun while also calling early general elections and pushing for a change to the constitution to allow the public rather than parliament to elect the president.
The presidential elections have exposed a deepening divide between secularists and supporters of Erdogan's party. Secularists opposed Gul's candidacy, fearing that Erdogan's party would expand its control and impose religion on society.
Erdogan's party, an advocate of EU membership, rejects the label of Islamist and has done more than any other government to introduce Western reforms to the country.
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