TURKEY: A religious party with no obvious leader looks likely to win tomorrow's general election, reports Nicholas Birch, in Ankara.
The result of tomorrow's Turkish elections looks like a foregone conclusion. Opinion polls show the Muslim democrat AK Party holding a 10 per cent lead over its nearest competitor, and there is a chance it could become Turkey's first openly religious party to win a government majority.
The only trouble is, nobody knows who will lead it.
It should have been Tayyip Erdogan, the charismatic ex-footballer who founded AKP after a successful stint as mayor of Istanbul. But his past, and Turkey's ultra-secularist establishment, have come back to haunt him.
On the basis of a 10-month prison sentence he served in 1998 after reciting a poem comparing minarets to bayonets, the constitutional court earlier this month ruled him ineligible to stand for election.
"The situation is absurd," says a political commentator, Sedat Ergin. "In Germany parties are obliged to present their entire future cabinet to public scrutiny. We don't even know who our prime minister will be."
Although the ban was legally justified, few doubt that it was politically motivated.
Since 1997, when the prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, was removed by generals who accused him of Islamism, the state has clamped down on those it suspects of mixing religion and politics.
The offshoot of two parties closed down by the state, AKP has worked hard to moderate its image. The party programme makes almost no mention of religion, concentrating instead on Turkey's EU accession process and the need to support the IMF's attempts to shore up the country's crisis-torn economy.
"We are no different from Christian Democrats in Europe", says the AKP's Istanbul chairman, Mehmet Muezzinoglu. "Our aim is to bring more democracy to Turkey and to increase the level of human rights."
A political scientist, Metin Heper, believes him. "I think AKP is the expression of a successful mixing of Islam and ideas of political secularism", he says.
"It's now the turn of Turkey's secular centre to change its tune."
A prominent defender of the secular heritage bequeathed by Turkey's founder, Ataturk, artist Bedri Baykam disagrees. "All this moderate rhetoric is a facade for Islamic extremism," he says.
A tiny minority of Mr Erdogan's supporters doubtless would like to see Sharia law installed. But with the country crippled by its worst-ever recession, most voters have more pragmatic concerns.
A tour guide, Aziz Cigdem, who describes himself as "Muslim by birth only", has fond memories of Mr Erdogan's years as Istanbul mayor.
"He proved himself an excellent administrator, efficient and, most of all, clean," he says. "That's why I'm voting for his party."
With negotiations on EU accession and Cyprus heating up, and war imminent in neighbouring Iraq, Turkey desperately needs a strong, stable government.
The question is: will Turkey's establishment give AKP a chance?
An expert on political Islam, Rusen Cakir, thinks the ban on Mr Erdogan could jeopardise the new government's efficiency.
"If AKP appoints a weak prime minister, he will be a puppet in Erdogan's hands," he explains. "If they choose a strong leader, he's unlikely to accept Erdogan's diktats without a fight. And behind-the-scenes squabbling doesn't make for good leadership."
Tensions are likely to be highest at the monthly National Security Council, where generals meet cabinet ministers to discuss policy. "Public disclosure of what is discussed at these meetings is a constitutional crime," says an international relations expert, Hasan Unal.
"Erdogan will not be present, and I have no idea how his ministers expect to keep him informed of discussions."
He thinks the dilemma will only deepen the army's mistrust of the AKP.
"If I were a general in such a situation, I'd want to keep my policy plans to myself," he says.