Turkish election comes at difficult time

Washington holds up its Nato-ally Turkey as a shining example of Muslim democracy. But democracies hold elections and sometimes they come at inconvenient times.

Turkey will go to the polls in November - as will the United States for congressional elections - at the very moment when Washington may be looking to Ankara for support in a military campaign to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Turkey has long been a loyal ally to the United States but a change of prime minister can only complicate US preparations for military action that is widely expected to happen eventually, though perhaps not until as late as next year.

The biggest uncertainty surrounds the front-runner in the opinion polls, the Justice and Development or AK Party, which is viewed with deep suspicion by Turkey's secular establishment because of its Islamist roots.

AK leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces legal challenges to ban him from politics, even though his party, drawing on a strong protest vote after more than a year of financial crisis, is streets ahead in the opinion polls.

Polls have been wrong in the past. They failed to predict the strong showing by the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in the last election, and some are funded by political parties.

But AK has got some people worried. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit fought a losing battle to avoid early elections, relying on the argument that a vote could play into the hands of the "twin demons" of Islamism and Kurdish separatism.

"AK Party may not be dangerous at all but if important power centres perceive them as dangerous then there's not much to be done," said Cengiz Candar, a columnist on Yeni Safak newspaper.

"If they get a sweeping victory there will be trouble." AK emerged last year from the ruins of the Virtue Party which was banned as a focus of Islamist militancy. Virtue split in two, with Erdogan at the head of a more moderate group that he wants to present as a conservative democratic party.

AK says it would, on taking power, fulfil its obligations under international treaties and carry out the terms of a $16 billion International Monetary Fund rescue programme with "only some refinements" to ease popular hardship.

The party has reached out to business and western diplomats to differentiate itself from its forerunners. "There hasn't been a lot to indicate that they're monsters," said one diplomat.

The last government led by Islamists was forced to resign in 1997 by a military campaign that has been described as a "post-modern coup". Analysts note, however, that the military has done little to block elections that AK seems likely to do well in, indicating perhaps that their concerns are not so deep.

Any government emerging from the November 3 election will most likely be a coalition. More than 45 parties are contesting the election and even AK is not expected to win much more than 20 to 25 per cent of the vote.

It could, however, take more seats in parliament if the fragmentation of the parties means that only a few groups manage to break the 10 per cent barrier to win seats. AK is also expected to benefit if, as polls indicate is possible, a large number of voters choose not to vote for any of the parties.

"It's likely the Islamist AK Party will come to power, perhaps overwhelmingly. They might be able to get more than 300 MPs out of the 550," said Hasan Unal, a professor at Ankara's Bilkent University, predicting trouble with the army if that occurs.

On the centre right, former prime ministers Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller head rival parties - Motherland and Truth Path Party (DYP) - that battle for the same votes, while further to the right the MHP is wooing the nationalist vote.

The left is even more divided. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) has lost half its members to the New Turkey Party (DYP) - expected to win the patronage of Economy Minister Kemal Dervis. The DSP's long-time rival the Republican People's Party (CHP) appears strong in the polls and is likely to make a comeback from the wilderness.

Dervis, the architect of Turkey's multi-billion dollar IMF reform programme and viewed by markets as the guarantor of stability, recognises the problem of fragmentation.

"Of course our entering elections in such a divided political environment presents some disadvantages," he said, indicating that parties of similar vision could make alliances.

Given the unpopularity of the government parties - DSP, Motherland and the MHP - due to economic hardship since last year's financial crisis, Candar said the only party strong enough to challenge AK was the CHP, and then only if the left rallies around it to form a single reformist platform.

Sami Kohen, a columnist at Milliyet newspaper, said the main issues in the campaign would be the economy, as in all elections, and the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join.

Iraq may be used as a campaign tool, he said, particularly by opposition parties who will insist that Turkey not get too involved in any US action against its southern neighbour.

Once in power, however, any government will see that if war breaks out Turkey is better to be involved, on the inside where it may exert some influence, than left out, Kohen said.

"Once you're in power you have to be more responsible."