Abolition of the Caliphate was an important dimension in Atatürk's drive to reform the political system and to promote national sovereignty. By the consensus of the Muslim majority in early centuries, the caliphate was the core political concept of Sunni Islam. Abolishing the sultanate was easier because the survival of the Caliphate at the time satisfied the partisans of the sultanate. This produced a split system with the new republic on one side and an Islamic form of government with the Caliph on the other side, and Atatürk and İnönü worried that "it nourished the expectations that the sovereign would return under the guise of Caliph." Caliph Abdülmecid II was elected after the abolition of the sultanate (1922).