The bill will now have to be signed into law by the head of state. Acting President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose seven-year presidential term expired May 16, has hinted he might veto the document, and if he does, the issue will have to be decided by a nationwide referendum.
Such a poll may be held on July 22, on the same day as the election of a new legislature whose term, under an amendment that has passed a second reading, may also be reduced to four years from five.
The amendments were put on the table by the Justice and Development Party (also known as AK) headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and dominating the 550-seat parliament. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a member of AK and the only candidate for the presidency, withdrew his candidacy after the Constitutional Court dismissed the first round of the presidential vote in parliament. This happened because most opposition legislators had boycotted the vote, and too few deputies (370, six less than required) turned up.
Erdogan has avoided talking about his own presidential ambitions in the wake of protests earlier this month across the country, against what is portrayed by the powerful pro-secular military and widely seen by the public as a gradual slide toward Islamism, contrary to the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey's modern "founding father" and symbol of the country's secular identity.
The Turkish military has staged coups three times since the founding of the modern Turkish state in the 1920s to restore order and maintain a secular form of government in the country aspiring to join the European Union wary of its democratic and human rights records.
