TURKEY:A PROSECUTOR has called for Turkey's ruling AK Party (AKP) to be closed down, in a move that has been described as the final reckoning between establishment secularists and a former Islamist party in power since 2002.
In his March 14th indictment, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya cited what he called AKP's "anti-secular activities" as a justification for the closure, and called on Turkey's constitutional court to slap a five-year political ban on 71 party members, including the prime minister and president.
The panel of 11 judges, eight of whom were appointed by a staunchly secularist former president, will decide whether to take the case next month. A court case would probably take months.
Turkey is no stranger to party closures. Two dozen have been banned since the country's first democratic elections in 1950. Last November, Mr Yalcinkaya launched a case to close a pro-Kurdish party with 21 parliamentary deputies. However, this is the first time a party with a parliamentary majority risks being put in the dock: AKP won 47 per cent of the vote at elections last July.
One prominent commentator has compared today's Turkey to an overladen truck with failing brakes accelerating towards the abyss.
For Ahmet Altan, editor of the daily Taraf, Mr Yalcinkaya's move is the last-gasp effort of a republican establishment that - like its Ottoman predecessor - sees society as its enemy. "We have come to the point where Turkey can go no further," he said.
"Turkey will change, but change means the shattering of a [ political] model six centuries old."
Yet, while it is easy to mock the judiciary's time-expired efforts to maintain the status quo, many think AKP should take part of the blame for what has happened.
Between 2002 and 2005, its leaders, most of whom were members of two earlier Islamist parties closed down by courts, won international plaudits for their single-minded pursuit of reform.
Their reformism evaporated after Turkey began European Union accession talks in 2005. Last year's landslide electoral victory only made things worse.
AKP's move from consensual politics to religious-tinged populism was exemplified by its decision in January to dump plans for a new liberal constitution in favour of efforts to lift a ban on headscarf-wearing women in university.
With Mr Yalcinkaya's indictment opening up social fissures as deep as Turkey has ever seen, pro-European Turks insist only renewed accession efforts can save AKP.
The party shows few signs of paying any attention. On March 15th, prime minister Tayyip Erdogan called the indictment a "move against the national will" and - apparently alluding to the prosecutor - cited a Koranic verse that compares unbelievers to "beasts".
AKP does appear rattled, however, not least by the prospect of a ban on Mr Erdogan, whose charisma holds the party together.
Exactly as it did during efforts to lift headscarf bans, it is seeking the support of a right-wing nationalist party for constitutional changes that would make it more difficult to close parties down. The draft changes would not encompass the pro-Kurdish party, which faces closure for its alleged activities "against the indivisible integrity of the state and the nation".