Abdullah Gul has finally been sworn in as the 11th president of Turkey, a feat which only in April seemed impossible. He succeeds the outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, perhaps the most criticized president in the country’s history.

It took two separate rounds of parliamentary balloting in April and on Tuesday this week; a warning from the country’s powerful armed forces in a midnight e-memorandum sent to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the threat to the secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk; and a snap election called by the Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in July which saw the prime minister returned with a landslide, that finally paved the way for Gul’s marathon presidential election victory. In the end, he won a handsome victory mustering 339 votes out of 448 votes.

On his way to his new official residence, Cankaya Palace in Ankara, President Gul stopped at Antkabir, the mausoleum of Atatürk, to pay his respects to the founder of the modern republic in 1923. He signed the guest book pledging his loyalty to Atatürk’s principles and the basic values of the republic.

For any other occupant of Cankaya Palace this would have been a routine ritual. But Abdullah Gul is no ordinary president. He carries a huge political baggage which precipitated a boycott of the swearing-in ceremony by the army top brass led by chief of General Staff, Gen. Yasar Buyukant.

Gul’s visit to Anitkabir was a clear statement of intent to the armed forces. Despite suffering a bloody nose from the electorate, who displayed a newfound maturity in decisively rejecting the military and left-wing Republican People Party’s fears of the so-called threat to secularism, the Turkish armed forces have remained true to themselves. They have displayed an uncanny disdain for the democratic process and the will of the Turkish people. They have shown what sore losers they are and have displayed an unhealthy inability to move on. With an army top brass like this, no wonder Ankara’s road to Brussels has been plagued by political potholes, diversions and even the odd temporary closure.

Even a day before the presidential poll on Monday, Buyukanit warned that “centers of evil were trying to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic,” without directly referring to then presidential candidate Abdullah Gul.

Ironically, it was Gul as foreign minister for the last five years that has played such a crucial role in persuading the European Union to open accession talks with Turkey. Not surprisingly, the EU, US and Britain have quickly welcomed his elevation to the presidency. European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso was quick to stress that the election was “an opportunity to give fresh, immediate and positive impetus to the accession process to the European Union through progress in a number of key areas”.

Indeed, Gul displayed a flair for pragmatic diplomacy, which many pundits believe will stand him in good stead in his challenging tenure at Cankaya Palace.

If the stunning July election victory of AK Party was a watershed for Turkish politics, then the election of Abdullah Gul to the presidency represents a brave new era for it. For the first time in the history of the republic, the president, prime minister and speaker of the Parliament, the three top posts in the state, will all be held by members of AK Party, essentially a “Muslim Democratic Union” akin to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I will be loyal to the constitution and the principles set out in the constitution. I will be the president of all of Turkey and will be totally impartial,” said President Gül, during his address to Parliament following his election.

While the majority of Turks believe their new president and acknowledge his sincerity, the armed forces in an unholy alliance with the extreme right and center left, are effectively calling Gul a liar. To them it is a case of “once an Islamist, always an Islamist,” referring to Gul and Erodgan’s alleged radical Islamist past. To them the acid test is that both Gul and Erdogan’s wives prefer to wear headscarves, as if this was not an issue of personal piety but a defiant political statement.

Indeed, Turkey’s first lady, Hayrunisa Gul, fearful of the frenzy of a fundamentalist secular media, did not witness her husband’s swearing-in. She did not want to become the news of the day, when it should be her husband’s historic elevation to the presidency.

The irony is that should she have decided to attend the swearing-in ceremony wearing a head scarf, it would technically have been against the law of the land, which proscribes the wearing of head scarves in all state institutions. Such is the fragility of Turkish democracy, which still today operates under the military-imposed constitution of Sept. 16, 1980.

One of Gul’s first tasks in statecraft was approving the new government of his prime minister. Erdogan is keen to get on with the business of ruling and to start delivering on his election promises — further strengthening of the Turkish economy; rolling back the state; creating more jobs; speeding up European accession talks; drafting a new civilian constitution; improving the democratic polity of Turkey, especially press freedom and minority rights.

What then are the implications of Gul’s election? Is it, as the noted columnist Mehmet Ali Birand suggests, that there is either a whiff of political compromise in Ankara, and though the army top brass did not attend the swearing-in they have decided to live with the reality of the day.

Or, a foul smell of gutter politics which threatens to engulf the republic in the near future?

Whether Erdogan’s Muslim democracy becomes a model for the Islamic world, or whether it precipitates the polarization of the republic, depends on the Turkish people. If Turks constantly live in suspicion of each other, and force each other’s principles on the other, then they will be defeating their own purpose. The choice for Turkey is stark — either “a Republic of Fear” in which the army reins, or a “Republic of Social Democracy” championed by Muslim democrats.

If Gul succeeds, then Turkey may well witness a long-overdue reconciliation between secular democracy and Islam. Gul’s success will be the success of all Turks and two cheers for democracy.

Someone is already smiling on the Cankaya Palace. An increasing number of Opposition politicians, political commentators from even from the hard-line anti-AK Party Cumhurriyet daily, and dare I say some junior army brass, are already giving Gul the benefit of the doubt.