A COALITION deal may be announced today that would bring to power Turkey's Islamic Welfare Party (RP), writes Nicole Pope from Istanbul.
The man who seems intent on forging such an alliance with the Islamists is Mr Mesut Yilmaz, leader of the Motherland Party (ANAP), who, ironically, had focused his election campaign on the need to block the way for the RP.
Mr Yilmaz was mandated to form a government by President Suleyman Demirel after both Mr Necmettin Erbakan, the RP leader, and caretaker Prime Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, had failed to find coalition partners.
Open hostility between Ms Ciller and Mr Yilmaz has impossible a more natural union of their two centre right parties.
It is believed Mr Vilmaz, whose parliamentary group is the third in terms of deputies, is trying to convince the Islamists to let him have first go in a rotating premiership. His pretext is that this would give the public time to get used to the Islamists' presence in the government.
Since the elections, Mr Erbakan has set aside his more flamboyant promises to "liberate Jerusalem, Bosnia and Chechnya" and to abolish interest rates. He has been at pains to present himself as a responsible statesman.
But he still lets slip unguarded remarks, for example praising the Islamic revolution in Iran, that prove his fiery rhethoric has not completely burned out. But comparing his apparently reasonable behaviour to the squabbles between Mr Vilmaz and Ms Ciller, many Turks have got used to the idea of an RP coalition.
Others still feel that ANAP would in fact act as a Trojan horse for the Islamists, allowing them to get a grip on power while hiding the real religious agenda. The deal is far from done, however.