TURKEY:TURKEY'S TOP court voted yesterday to hear a case calling for the ruling party to be closed down, in a move that looks set to open the bitterest bout yet in a 50-year war pitting popularly elected governments against the secular establishment.
The constitutional court's unanimous decision comes a fortnight after a prosecutor charged the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) with trying to turn Turkey into a country that "takes religion as its reference", and demanded political bans on the prime minister and president.
Turkey's constitutional court has ordered the closure of 26 political parties in the past 50 years, and has upheld every case brought before it, which means precedent is against the AKP.
The offshoot of an Islamist party closed down by courts in 1998, the AKP has a month to prepare its defence.
With the case likely to last at least six months, many fear the party will now have neither the time nor the inclination for reforms aimed at strengthening the country's still-flawed democracy and economy.
Senior European figures warned Turkey over the weekend that closing the AKP could jeopardise the country's struggling European Union bid. A few days earlier, Turkish business leaders called for compromise to avoid even deeper political turmoil. The signs are, though, that both sides may be preparing to fight to the bitter end.
The March 14th indictment was the latest attempt by secularists to trip up a party that came to power in 2002 and was re-elected with 47 per cent of the vote last summer. And for all his fondness for comparing the pious Turks who make up his party's core supporters to "America's blacks", the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is no Martin Luther King.
Speaking a day after the indictment, he called it a "move against the national will", and - apparently alluding to the prosecutor - cited a Koranic verse that compares unbelievers to "beasts".
"There is hatred in Erdogan's eyes these days," says Cüneyt Ülsever, an analyst who knows the premier personally. "He seems to be out for revenge."
Most analysts argue that, barring an unlikely compromise with uncompromising secularists, the only path the AKP can now take is to prove the emptiness of the prosecutor's case in court.
But senior figures in the government appear convinced the court will rule against them regardless of their defence.
With the future of their party - and their charismatic leader - in doubt, they appear to be mulling over plans to call a referendum on a constitutional article on party closures.
"I do not think this country would be able to carry that sort of tension," says political analyst Cengiz Aktar, giving voice to a fear in many Turks' minds these days. "A referendum could spark a real coup d'etat, not just the judicial one we've been presented with today."
Worries over the economy deepened yesterday when figures showed a sharp slowdown in economic growth in 2007. Gross domestic product expanded by 4.5 per cent, compared with 6.9 per cent in 2006.
Analysts are also cutting their growth forecasts, and suggest the weakness of the lira would mean higher interest rates. Shares on the Istanbul stock market fell by about 3 per cent.