Can Turkey Make the Transition to an EU Democracy?

Despite Turkey professing to be a democracy, the government has been dominated by the military for many years. They've seen to it that a candidate for office can't be openly religious in order to run for office. Like virtually every Muslim country, Turkey has a restive fundamentalist Muslim population. If it's not a majority, it's at least a large minority, perhaps a voting block that could not be denied if the military hadn't intervene with multiple coop de tats in the past.
Fundamentalism is resurgent all over the world, Turkey is no exception. What is most notable is that Turkey is up for consideration in the European Union. As a democracy with western values, it would qualify. What's clear is that the country is not yet a democracy because it has blocked a Muslim candidate for President because of how he practices his religion, not his politics.
New York Times

Turkey’s highest court on Tuesday blocked a presidential candidate with a background in Islamic politics, pitching the country into early elections and a referendum on the role of religion in its future.


In a 9-to-2 ruling, the court upheld an appeal by Turkey’s main secular political party, which sought to block Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from becoming president, objecting to what they said were his Islamic credentials.


But Mr. Gul, an observant Muslim who is Turkey’s foreign minister, has kept Islam out of public policy in his four years in government, and his supporters said the decision was simply an attempt to hold on to power by Turkey’s secular elite, which has controlled the state since Ataturk’s revolution in 1923.


Turkey is an important American ally and its stability is seen as crucial in a troubled region. It shares borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria. It is a member of NATO and has good relations with Israel. It has also been critical for the American military in Iraq, providing an air base in the south of the country that supplies much of northern and central Iraq.


Mr. Gul, 56, an English speaker who has led Turkey’s push to join the European Union, tried to allay Turkish fears on Tuesday.


“If I had had a secret agenda as claimed, if those concerns were truly a part of my secret agenda, the European Union membership could not have been my policy,” he said.


Then, in a conciliatory tone unusual for members of his party, who ordinarily dismiss secular concerns as old-fashioned and unreasonable, Mr. Gul added, “But if there are concerns as such, we need to work together to understand and correct them.”


Heightening the tension was the arrest of more than 500 protestors, who were marching in an unauthorized May Day rally unrelated to the current political impasse. Television networks broadcast images of police officers in riot gear beating demonstrators and spraying them with pepper gas. The Turkish stock market continued its fall, and Mr. Erdogan made public remarks to restore faith in it.