Turkey's Parliament approves early elections for July 22

Parliament on Thursday approved the date unanimously — with all 458 votes cast in favor — despite initial objections from the secular opposition, which argued the elections would be held at a time when many vacationing Turks would be away and unable to vote. Elections originally had been scheduled for November.

The government crisis began last week when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan nominated Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a close ally from his Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, as president.

At the heart of the conflict is a fear that the ruling party would misuse its control of both Parliament and the presidency to erode the secular foundation of modern Turkey.

With Erdogan's strong majority in Parliament, Gul had looked sure to win, but the secularist opposition boycotted the Parliament vote and took the issue to the Constitutional Court, which said there had been no quorum and annulled the first round of voting.

The powerful military, which has overthrown governments in the past, warned last week against the growing profile of Islam and, in a statement seen as a warning that it might intervene, reaffirmed its willingness to act as the "absolute defender of secularism."

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Istanbul and Ankara to demand Erdogan's ouster.

Erdogan chose the option of early general elections as a way to defuse tension in the country.

The United States, a NATO ally, and the European Union_ which Turkey aspires to join — have warned Turkey to prevent its military from defying civilian leaders, a point a top EU official repeated Thursday.

"It's a crucial moment for Turkey, indeed," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Lisbon, Portugal. "What we want to see is civilian power (having) priority over military power. This is a moment when things will be defined."

Parliament on Thursday held a first-round of voting on a constitutional amendment that would lower the minimum age for election to Parliament to 25, from 30, and a measure which would make it harder for a pro-Kurdish party to field independent candidates in elections. The second and final round of voting will be held on Sunday.

Currently, a party needs 10 percent of the vote to win seats in Parliament. The Kurdish group, the Democratic Society Party, had planned to circumvent that rule by making its candidates stand as independents, who would then form a party with their individual seats once they got into Parliament.

The move comes despite the European Union's call on Turkey to reduce the threshold and ensure wider representation in Parliament.

Turkey's electoral board, which oversees elections, had recommended July 22, which was also approved by a parliamentary committee late Wednesday.

Erdogan's party will hold a new presidential vote on Sunday. But analysts said it would again be hard for the ruling party to get enough votes to elect Gul.

Erdogan's party also submitted to Parliament proposals for constitutional amendments to allow the president to be elected by popular vote, rather than by the Parliament.

The proposals, which do not have the main opposition party's backing, would also reduce the presidential term from the current seven years, to five, and allow the president to stand for re-election for a second term. Another proposal was to hold general elections every four years instead of five. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/