AKP FACES DIFFICULT CHALLENGES IN RUNNING TURKEY

ANKARA 7 Nov. (IPS) As Mr. Bulent Ecevit, the ageing and disabled Turkish Prime Minister bid farewell Wednesday to politics, following the Sunday election that saw the collapse of all the Turkish traditional parties, political analysts said the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP, or AKP in Turkish) that was swept to power faces great challenges, inheriting a desastrous economic and political situation, left by the outgoing government.

The AKP received more than 34 per cent of the popular vote, giving it some 360 seats at the Turkish 550 members-Parliament. The rest of the seats are occupied by the centre of the Popular Republican Party, a Kemalist movement and some independent bidders.

“The outcome of the votes did surprised everyone by its magnitude¨, said Mr. Reza Shojai, an Iranian lawyer in Istanbul, pointing out that the AKP of Mr. Recep Tayyep Erdogan has shed its fundamentalist image for a “modern Islamist organisation open to the world”.

“The Justice and Development Party has become a westernward looking organisation seeking close cooperation with both the European community and the United States, as well as keeping Turkey firmly inside NATO”, he told Iran Press Service during a telephone interview.

In the view of Mr. Shojaí¨, the big question is how the Army would deal with the winers, thinking that the Party´s ancestor had been shut down under the pressure of the military, which has the upper hand in the nation´s political life, as the guarantor of the secularism introduced by Mustafa Kemal after the end of the first world war.

Mr. Erdogan could not run for the elections and can not become Prime Minister, since he is under justice investigations for charges of “inciting people by making inflamatory, religious declarations”, but analysts say that he would remain as the real “guiding force” of whoever he names as Prime Minister.

Asked how he explains the humiliating defeat of the traditional parties, Mr. Shjai said the outcome was “a lesson¨turkish voters wanted to give the leaders in whom they had placed their hope for a better economic situation .

“What you see is the result of the Turkish economic and cultural impoverishment”, he said, adding that he would not be surprised to see Washington backing Mr. Erdogan.

As speculation continued Wednesday about whom Mr. Erdogan would name as the next Prime Minister, Mr. Shjai said odds work for Mr. Abdullah Gul, a former deputy Prime Minister under Necemettin Erbakan, who was ousted from power by a military coup.

“Gul is a seasonned politician who is supported by the United States”, Mr. Shojai said, adding that the victory of the islamists would neither affect the military and intelligence cooperation that links Ankara and Tel Aviv. ENDS TURKISH ELECTIONS 71102