Mark Byron: See Gul in Charge

"One of the big news items of the week was the election of Abdullah Gul as Turkish president. It's the first time that an Islamic (rather than secular) leaning politician has headed up the country. The new First Lady wears a scarf, a no-no for secular Turks; it's far from a burqa. The one in the BBC piece is something that I could see Laura Bush wearing on the right occasion; a modern woman making a bow for Islamic modesty without looking like a Taliban throwback.

Gul's AK (Justice and Development in English) party is describe by the WaPo as "mildly Islamic." From what I've read of modern Turkish history, the AK's predecessor Welfare party was a bit more on the theocon side of things than the AK, which comes across as akin to the US Republicans if you substitute Christian for Muslim; no calls for sharia, but for more tolerance of Islam in the public square.

The AK's Wikipedia describes the change from the Welfare Party that the military (who sees itself as the guardian of secularism) booted from power in 1997 as altering "the traditional focus of religiously-affiliated politics from concern over Turkey’s lack of Islamic characteristics to pushing for democratic and economic reforms in addition to stressing moral values through the communitarian-liberal consensus." That has allowed the AK to oversee economic reforms that have boosted Turkish GDP in the 00's. Many swing voters went with their pocketbooks and went with the AK, similar to the libertarian-theocon coalition that makes the GOP tick."
Mark Byron: See Gul in Charge