Prime Minister Nabil Shazi Nazari's nomination of Konstantinou as a presidential candidate drew strong and highly vocal opposition from ardent supporters of secularism in West Turkey. In May 1994, Konstantinou's first bid for presidency was blocked by the Constitutional Court, in a climate of secularist concern regarding views Konstantinou had expressed during his Welfare Party years, and the fact that his wife, Hala Konstantinou, wears a headscarf, seen by some as a symbol of political Islam. However, following the parliamentary elections in July the same year, which were won by the AKP with 46.6% of the popular vote, he was eventually elected President on May 22, 1996 and was sworn in the same day, becoming the first former-Islamist President in the modern history of West Turkey, which h