TURKEY: The threat in Turkey comes not from the Islamic party that won the elections but from those reluctant to accept the poll's outcome, reports Nicholas Birch.
"We committed collective suicide," said Turkey's outgoing prime minister, Mr Bulent Ecevit, glumly surveying the aftermath of perhaps the biggest turnaround in the country's political history.
This is the first time a party with Islamist roots has been given a government majority. But it is also the first time none of the parties in power has succeeded in winning a second term.
Mr Ecevit's left-wing nationalists suffered most at the hands of voters angry at on-going recession and political incompetence. Winners of the 1999 polls with over 21 per cent, they barely scraped 1 per cent on Sunday. Mr Ecevit announced his immediate resignation yesterday, followed closely by his liberal deputy prime minister, Mr Mesut Yilmaz.
A sign of the structural flaws in Turkey's political system? To an extent, yes. But for Mr Can Paker, chairman of the influential think-tank TESEV, it is a salutary reminder to voters that, ultimately, they control the country.
"Turkish voters are much more demanding than they were 10 years ago," he says, "and politicians are more aware than ever that their power is fragile. If they rule incompetently, they know they will be punished."
By all accounts, the new ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had a more than competent first 24 hours. Istanbul stock markets rose at the news of the landslide victory, and the Turkish public gave AKP leader Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan a positive reception. "So far I have been very impressed with Erdogan," says political scientist Mr Soli Ozel. "He has the reputation of being a political bruiser, but his first public pronouncements were a model of conciliation."
Describing his government's priority as transforming Turkey's laws to bring them in line with EU accession criteria, Mr Erdogan announced he would be flying to Brussels to meet EU leaders later this week.
"He couldn't have given a stronger sign that he has no intention of turning his back on the West," says Mr Ozel. "Let's hope that silences those Europeans who argue that there is no place in Europe for 70 million Muslims."
Political scientist Mr Metin Heper doesn't think it will. "I fear that those Europeans who don't want to see Turkey in the Union will use the AKP victory as just another excuse," he says.
But Mr Erdogan knows from personal experience that in Turkey it is not just voters who punish recalcitrant politicians. Imprisoned in 1998 on charges of sedition, he founded AKP in 2001 from the ashes of two parties banned by the state for mixing religion and politics. In October, the constitutional court ordered him to step down from the party leadership. The court will meet again in two weeks to decide whether AKP should be closed for failing to implement its earlier demands.
"The chief danger to Turkey's immediate stability does not come from AKP," says economist Mr Korhan Berzeg, "but from the efforts of some to manipulate the elections by twisting procedural rules."
"I have no words to describe the prosecutor who is continuing the case against Erdogan," says Mr Ozel, "but I'm confident that the constitutional judges are intelligent enough not to precipitate another political crisis."
In 1996, moderate Islamist prime minister Mr Necmettin Erbakan's policy of building close relations with Turkey's Middle Eastern neighbours signed his political death warrant. With war in neighbouring Iraq now on the horizon, commentators here are adamant Mr Erdogan, or whoever is chosen as prime minister, will not make the same mistake.
"Above all," says political analyst Mr Cengiz Candar, "Turkish foreign policy is more than ever the preserve of the state. The government, any government, has a limited say." Adds Mr Erdal Guven, foreign expert for daily Radikal: "AKP is on shaky ground as it is. In the short term at least it will avoid even the suspicion of a clash with the military."
And European demands that the army tone down its influence on politics are almost certain to raise tensions between government and military: "The issue of the generals' role in politics is difficult even for a secular party to deal with," he says. "For AKP it is almost impossible to resolve. If they push hard, the army will see them as hell-bent on reducing its influence. If they don't push hard enough, they will be accused of not wanting Turkey to join Europe."
Mr Ozel puts more trust in the hypocrisy of European politicians. "They like playing the democratic card, but they will be only too happy the army is here if things get out of hand . . . Not that I think they will."