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LEADERS

OVERVIEW FACTS LEADERS MEDIA

President: Ahmet Necdet Sezer

Ahmet Sezer’s term ends in 2007.

A major political crisis developed in April 2007 when the governing Justice and Development Party (AK) put forward Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its presidential candidate.

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer: Regarded as a secularist

Secularists took to the streets over the nomination, and the opposition blocked his candidacy, accusing him of having an Islamist agenda.

In response, parliament has initially agreed to constitutional changes to allow the president to be directly elected by the people instead of MPs.

When Mr Sezer was sworn in in May 2000 he became the first president in modern Turkish history who was neither an active politician nor a military commander.

A former chief justice of the constitutional court, he is seen as a strong supporter of freedom of expression and a staunch secularist.

The president is chosen by parliament to serve a seven-year term. The post holder appoints the prime minister and can dissolve parliament. However, legislative power is held by parliament - the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Prime minister: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Tayyip Erdogan, who became premier in March 2003, led his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to victory in the July 2007 elections and is expected to head the next government.

Prime Minister Erdogan has set his sights on EU entry

Erdogan called the poll early after the army-backed secular elite blocked his choice of an ex-Islamist ally as the next president.

The AK Party boosted its share of the vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections to 47% despite opposition efforts to portray his pro-business party, which has Islamist roots, as a Trojan horse set to turn Turkey into an Iran-style theocracy.

Mr Erdogan first became prime minister several months after his party’s landslide election victory in November 2002.

He had been barred from standing in the poll because of a previous criminal conviction for reading an Islamist poem at a political rally. Changes to the constitution paved the way for him to run for parliament in 2003.

He identified EU entry as a top priority and introduced reforms which paved the way for the opening of membership talks in October 2005.

Although the AK has Islamist roots, he insists that it is committed to a secular state.
From a lowly background, Mr Erdogan worked as a street seller to help pay for an education. He attended Koranic school before studying economics at university.

As mayor of Istanbul in the mid 1990s he banned alcohol in municipal buildings and won popularity for improving services.

MEDIA

OVERVIEW FACTS LEADERS MEDIA

Turkey’s airwaves are lively, with some 300 private TV stations - more than a dozen of them with national coverage - and more than 1,000 private radio stations competing with the state broadcaster, TRT.

Powerful businesses operate many of the press and broadcasting outlets; they include the Dogan group, the leading media conglomerate.

For journalists, the subjects of the military, Kurds and political Islam are highly sensitive and can lead to arrest and criminal prosecution. Media watchdogs and rights groups report that journalists have been imprisoned, or attacked by police. It is also common for radio and TV stations to have their broadcasts suspended for airing sensitive material.

Some of the most repressive sanctions against journalists have been lifted as part of reforms intended to meet EU entry requirements. But the Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders noted in 2006 that journalists were “still at the mercy of arbitrary court decisions”.

An article in the penal code makes it a crime to insult Turkish national identity. It has been used to prosecute journalists and publishers.

Kurdish-language broadcasts, banned for many years, were introduced by the state broadcaster in June 2004 as a part of reforms intended to meet EU criteria on minorities. Some overseas-based Kurdish TV channels broadcast via satellite.

The press