Turks prefer Gül over Erdoğan for president

Turks would prefer to see incumbent Abdullah Gül as their next president if they had to choose between him and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a Turkish opinion poll showed on Wednesday, Hurriyet reports.

The results of the survey by Turkish pollster MetroPOLL suggest Erdoğan could face some public resistance in achieving his goal of taking charge of a newly-constituted executive presidency in two years time.

Gül's seven-year term expires in 2014 and the survey of political attitudes showed nearly 60 percent of people thought he should be a candidate in the next election.

Asked who they would vote for if they had to choose between Gul and Erdoğan, 50.9 percent said Gul and 22.7 percent said Erdoğan. Another 16.1 percent said they did not know and 10.3 percent did not give an answer.