ANKARA -- Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has submitted a draft legal amendment to Parliament in a fresh bid to allow its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to become prime minister, parliamentary sources said Friday.

The draft, which envisages changes to a 2000 amnesty law, was handed in to the Parliament speaker's office late Thursday, shortly after the country's president vetoed a constitutional amendment package aimed at allowing Erdogan to run in future elections.

The 48-year-old Erdogan was barred from standing in the November 3 election -- in which the AKP won a landslide victory -- because of a 1998 conviction for sedition, AFP reported.

Under the new planned change, the criminal record of a person convicted for 'freedom of expression' crimes, including sedition, will be expunged if he has served his sentence and has not been found guilty of a similar crime.

If adopted by Parliament, the amendment might allow Erdogan to run in a by-election to be held in Siirt Province in southeastern Turkey as early as February or March next year.

The AKP, a fledgling party born of a now banned Islamist movement, has set up the country's first single-party government in years.

The government is currently headed by Erdogan's right-hand man, Abdullah Gul, who is seen by many as a stand-in prime minister.