ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's foreign minister withdrew his candidacy for presidential elections after Parliament failed to reach a quorum Sunday needed to elect a new president, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Parliament was short of the 367 legislators needed to proceed with the vote after holding two separate roll-calls, Speaker Bulent Arinc said.
The vote was being repeated after Turkey's Constitutional Court, siding with the secular opposition, annulled a first-round of voting last week saying not enough legislators were present.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was the sole candidate in the voting.
Legislators from the secular party -- which boycotted the first-round of voting -- kept away from the vote again Sunday.
Gul said before the vote that he would withdraw his candidacy if he failed to get elected Sunday.
The presidential elections have exposed a deepening divide between secularists and supporters of Erdogan's party. Secularists oppose Gul's candidacy, fearing that Erdogan's party will expand its control and impose religion on society.
Erdogan's ruling party, an advocate of European Union membership, rejects the label of Islamist and has done more than any other government to introduce Western reforms to the country.
The court's decision to invalidate last week's vote, along with increasing pressure from the public and the military, led Erdogan to call for early parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for July 22. A measure is also being debated in Parliament to allow the president to be elected directly by the people, rather than by Parliament, which is dominated by members of Erdogan's party.