Behind-the-scenes maneuvering in Ankara. Again, the tricky issue is that the parliament selects the president and, while the Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party dominates parliament, they do so only because of a fluke in the election system which transferred their 32 percent vote share into a near-two-thirds percent majority. The new parliament will be elected by the people in November 2007. The other question being bantered about in the Turkish press–and perhaps foreshadowing a constitutional crisis–revolves around voting mechanisms. There are multiple voting rounds in parliament to select the president. If the candidate fails to receive enough seats the first round, the bar is lowered in future rounds. The constitutional issue is whether, if there is not a quorum present in the first round, whether the courts intervene or whether voting simply progresses to the next round. It may sound boring right now, but what’s going on in Turkey is going to impact NATO, the EU, and U.S. policy in the Middle East for the next seven years at least.