President Abdullah Gul, who hails from the same Islamist roots as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been cultivating an image for himself as a religiously devout, yet politically liberal and Western-oriented politician keen on European democratic and legal standards for Turkey.
Erdogan, with whom he cofounded and carried the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to victory, however, has landed him in a position where his politically positive political persona took a nose-dive, leaving him on the defensive.