Democracy travels a rocky road in Turkey. A government in existence for only one year is forced out of office by the army, and the President, Mr Suleyman Demirel, calls on an opposition party to take over despite the fact that it and its allies do not have a parliamentary majority. Turkey's generals have learnt how to throw their weight around. Three times since 1960 they drove their tanks out of the barracks and drove a government, not of their liking, out of office. This time however, they did not start the tanks but simply gave the Prime Minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan, orders which they knew he could not follow. Mr Erbakan, Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister, duly tendered his resignation. Mr Erbakan, leader of the staunchly-Islamic Welfare Party, the largest in parliament, put together an unlikely coalition last year and proceeded, the army says, to move Turkey subtly towards Islam. Not subtle enough for the generals, however, who regard themselves as the guarantors of Turkey's secular constitution. They took particular exception to Islamic religion schools called Imam Hatips and told Mr Erbakan to close them; Mr Erbakan could not oblige.
An eager candidate for the Prime Minister's post was the deputy Prime Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller. She had the job from 1993 to 1996 and was less than successful. Inflation roared to 124 per cent one year and the economy shrank by nearly 7 per cent the next. The leader of the True Path party, she campaigned before the 1995 election as the only person who could prevent the Islamists coming to power and then proceeded to put them in power by joining their coalition. Mr Demirel was the previous leader of True Path and does not approve of what Ms Ciller has done with the party; not surprisingly she got no phone call from the President. Ms Ciller nevertheless is furious. She had agreed with Mr Erbakan that he resign on the assumption that the premiership would then be offered to her and the coalition would remain in power.
The leader of the main opposition party, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, is the Prime Minister-designate. His conservative Motherland party and their allies, however, are short of a majority and he faces a considerable task in cobbling one together. His natural ally would be Ms Ciller's True Path - they were in government together briefly last year - but relations are not good. Ms Ciller needs to be careful. If she resolves to deny Mr Yilmaz any support, some members of her party may break away and do so anyway. She suffered defections when she went into coalition with Welfare and all Mr Yilmaz needs is for 10 more to cross the floor.
Mr Yilmaz seeks to form a broad-based government (but without Welfare) and intends to hold elections no sooner then next spring. Mr Erbakan had a deal with Ms Ciller that she would call elections by September. He was anticipating, with some justification, that early elections might boost his party's share of the vote. His Welfare party has appeal and there would be sympathy for an elected Prime Minister who gets kicked out by unelected generals, especially among Turks who have come of age since the last election - many of whom would be Imam Hatip graduates. A delay in elections would not suit Mr Erbakan.