Elections in Turkey The burden of victory

EVEN fans of Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were surprised by the scale of his success. His mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party won 47% of the vote on July 22nd, a 12-point increase in the vote that swept him to office in 2002. During the campaign those who had predicted the success, such as Taha Erdem, a respected pollster, were accused of taking sides. “A fat lie,” declared Mine Kirikkanat, a pro-secular commentator, who has since had to eat her words. Others who have been soundly rebuked by the voters include the army, which helped to precipitate the early elections by trying to block AK's choice of candidate as Turkey's new president.

Mr Erdogan's gamble in going to the voters paid off. Turnout was a record 85%, with millions of Turks cutting short beach holidays to cast their ballots. AK secured 341 of the 550 seats in the parliament, allowing it once again to form a government on its own, but short of the two-thirds needed to force through its choice of president. Mr Erdogan may be strengthened, but he will still need all of the political deftness that has got him this far.

The breadth of Mr Erdogan's success is best illustrated by the new political map: nearly all of Turkey's 81 provinces, including seven mainly Kurdish ones, are painted in the AK party's yellow hue. Female representation in parliament doubled with some 50 women winning seats—more than ever before. The party's liberalising political reforms, which persuaded EU leaders to begin long-delayed membership talks with Turkey in 2005, played a part in the victory. But above all it was the government's economic performance—7.3% average annual growth, record foreign investment and lower inflation—that won the day.

AK draws much of its support from poorer Turks. “I don't have to stand in line for hours to see a doctor and electricity prices have not gone up,” explained Necla Evin, a cleaning lady. But the markets also responded enthusiastically, pushing the Turkish lira to its highest level against the American dollar in over two years. Share prices soared on the main index of Istanbul's stock exchange.

Accepting victory at his party's headquarters in Ankara, Mr Erdogan told the crowd that democracy had triumphed, and quickly pledged to keep up efforts to join the European Union (despite nay-saying from France and other EU countries). Mr Erdogan also tried to soothe the many urban and middle-class Turks who fear his party is bent on unravelling decades of secularism established under the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk. “No matter who you voted for, I respect your choice,” Mr Erdogan said. “Your differences are our country's richness.”

However, his promise to seek consensus on a new president was being tested within days as Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister whose presidential nomination had provoked the crisis, hinted that he would make a fresh run. “I cannot ignore the signal from the streets,” said Mr Gul, referring to his supporters' frenzied chants of “Gul for president” during the campaign.

The attempt to elevate Mr Gul to the powerful presidency had prompted millions of pro-secular Turks, wary of Mr Gul's earlier flirtation with political Islam, to take to the streets. Their fears were symbolised by the Islamic headscarf, banned in all government buildings and schools, worn by the wives of both Mr Gul and Mr Erdogan. Tensions grew sharply after the army, claiming to detect a dangerous slide to Islamism, threatened to intervene. The constitutional court upheld opposition arguments that a first round of balloting to elect Mr Gul had been invalid, on the ground that parliament lacked a quorum, forcing Mr Erdogan to call fresh elections four months ahead of schedule.

Turkey's friends agree that as a seasoned diplomat with determinedly pro-Western views, Mr Gul would make a fine head of state. Yet, having vetoed him once, will the generals back down? Their hand has been weakened by the poor showing of the Republican People's Party (CHP), founded by Ataturk, which failed to capitalise on the anxieties of pro-secular Turks, winning just 21% of the vote. Turkey's secular elite feels more vulnerable than ever before. “The dominant feeling among secularists is one of shock, impotence, fury and despair,” wrote Meral Tamer in the pro-establishment daily, Milliyet.

Mr Erdogan will have to move carefully. The CHP's leader, Deniz Baykal, is ignoring calls to step down and is certain to keep up his opposition if Mr Gul is nominated again. Lacking the two-thirds of parliamentary seats needed to form a quorum for a presidential vote, Mr Erdogan will have to turn for support to the far-right National Action Party (MHP), which took 71 seats (after winning none the last time round). The inscrutable MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, has suggested he will co-operate, but he is likely to keep up pressure on Mr Erdogan to allow the army to enter northern Iraq in response to an upsurge in attacks by separatist rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Mr Erdogan may also have to lobby some 20 independents, most of them nationalist Kurds, who made it into the parliament.

Mr Erdogan has only cautiously endorsed a fresh candidacy by Mr Gul, perhaps because he does not want to pick a new fight with the generals. It was in deference to their sensitivities that Mr Erdogan dropped some 150 AK deputies, many of them Islamist ideologues, in favour of milder, more cosmopolitan candidates. This shift to the centre was also tailored to attract votes from Turks who never considered voting for AK before, notes Peter Van Praagh, senior director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Now that AK has support from mainstream Turks, he argues, the party will have to respond to their needs.

The party's conservative core supporters, however, may have other ideas. They see the party slipping out of their hands and may push Mr Erdogan to return to the issues dear to their hearts, but which Mr Erdogan has postponed during his four years in office: repealing the ban on Islamic headscarves, restricting further the influence of the army and lifting more of the restrictions on ethnic Kurds. As Mr Erdogan noted in his victory speech, “The burden of responsibility on our party is much bigger than before.” It may prove bigger than he wished for.