By Gulsen Solaker
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's two main opposition parties named a prominent Islamic diplomat on Monday as their joint candidate for an August presidential election in which Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is also expected to run.
The secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) said they had agreed to nominate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who stepped down in December as head of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC.
The choice by the CHP, party of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of Turkey's modern secular republic, reflects how religious conservatism has grown in the country of 77 million people in recent years.
But Cairo-born Ihsanoglu is relatively unknown among the public and lacks the domestic profile to challenge Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade.
The election will be the first time Turks have voted directly for their president. Erdogan has made little secret of his ambition to stand for what will be a stronger presidency but has yet to formally announce his bid.
"This proposal is good for our nation. The MHP is also wishing to unite behind this name and to conclude the presidential election without it turning into a crisis," MHP leader Devlet Bahceli and his CHP counterpart, Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in a joint statement.
"Under today's circumstances, we will be working on this name together," Bahceli said.
Ihsanoglu was secretary general of the Jeddah-based OIC, which represents 57 Islamic countries, for nine years during which it focused on a fruitless effort to have the United Nations pass a global ban on insults to Islam. Last December, he became the first OIC chief to meet the Pope and later told Reuters in an interview that some Muslim states should broaden rights for religious minorities.
"In principle it is very rational to put forward a conservative candidate. If you look at voting behaviour, it is highly unlikely for Turks to pick a liberal president," Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkish academic, told Reuters.
"But Ihsanoglu is not the man ... He might have served as a mediator in his role at the OIC, but he is so far away from the dynamics of Turkish politics, particularly from the presidential expectations of Turkish voters."
LATE TO THE GAME
Erdogan aspires to transform the presidency into a strong executive and senior officials from his Islamist-rooted AK Party have said he will stand in the August race.
Buoyed by the AK Party's strong showing in March municipal elections, when it took 43 percent of the national vote despite a corruption scandal and anti-government protests last summer, they predict his victory in the first round on Aug. 10. One aide has said he is likely to rule as president until 2023.
Erdogan has effectively begun campaigning, addressing rallies in the Black Sea cities of Rize and Trabzon in recent days. In May, he travelled to Germany to address thousands of potential supporters after changes to the electoral system made it easier for the diaspora to vote.
Erdogan's AK Party backed Ihsanoglu to lead the OIC but he was criticised by the cabinet last year after the organisation did not follow Ankara in condemning the toppling of Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi by the army as a military coup.
Bekir Bozdag, the current justice minister and one of Erdogan's inner circle who was deputy prime minister at the time, called on Ihsanoglu to resign, according to Turkish news website T24.
"The opposition naming Mr. Ihsanoglu as its presidential candidate is a success for conservative politics in Turkey," AK Party spokesman Huseyin Celik told Kanal 24 television on Monday, adding it was their party who helped him get elected as general secretary of the OIC.
"The elections will absolutely have a winner at the first round on Aug 10, whether the candidate is Erdogan, whether it's Gul, or another colleague. AK Party's candidate will get votes from other segments of the society as well," Celik said.
(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay, Humeyra Pamuk and Dasha Afansieva in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
