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The Gul Alternative

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s harsh manner may lead his party to consider President Abdullah Gul to run for re-election rather than back Erdogan for president in 2014.
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul (R) and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan (L) chat as President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud sits between them during the opening ceremony of Marmaray, a subway links Europe with Asia some 60 metres below the Bosphorus Strait, in Istanbul October 29, 2013. Turkey opened the world's first underwater rail link between two continents on Tuesday, connecting Asia and Europe and allowing Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to realise a project dreamt up by Ottoman sultans more than a cen

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s harsh demeanor, abrasive manner and increasingly authoritarian tendencies continue to keep him in the negative limelight. It seems he has started to grate on nerves even within his Justice and Development Party (AKP). There is evidence that not everyone in the party is happy with the way he is conducting himself.

Political observers have started wondering if Erdogan is unwittingly pushing President Abdullah Gul, a co-founder of the AKP whose term as president ends next year, into the foreground politically as an alternative leader capable of dousing the social tensions he has caused.

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