The Turkish parliament on Tuesday elected Bulent Arinc, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as its new speaker.
Arinc garnered 369 votes in the first round of voting in the 550-seat house, temporary speaker Sukru Elekdag announced.
His only other rival, Onder Sav from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the only other party in parliament, won 178 votes.
A lawyer by profession and a veteran politician, Arinc, 54, was one of the founding members of the AKP, a conservative movement that has its roots in banned Islamist parties, according to AFP.
Arinc belonged to both the Welfare Party of Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and its successor, the Virtue Party, banned in January 1998 and June 2001, for undermining the country's strictly secular order. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
