Necmettin Erbakan

By Saad Abdel Meguid, IOL Istanbul Correspondent

KONYA, Turkey, September 12 (IslamOnline) – Turkish Islamic leader, Necmettin Erbakan, presented his papers to the Higher Committee for Elections on Wednesday, September 11, as an independent candidate for Parliament. Erbakan is to fight the electoral battle representing his hometown, central Anatolian Konya province.

The former leader of the banned Welfare Party (RP) filled in his application while visiting Konya Provincial Election Board Chairman Nuri Kaya Isiklar, one day after he received a legal verdict to expunge his criminal record, and following two days of meetings of the National coalition members in Ankara.

Erbakan also renewed his call to the Turkish people to gather in one of Konya’s squares on November 1 and form a one-million person demonstration to show their will to the National Coalition, which has been leading the anti-secular political movement in the country since the early seventies.

According to Turkish experts and reports, Erbakan popularity is sky high in Konya and his winning the coming elections is almost guaranteed despite the 5 year political isolation imposed on him by the Constitutional Court since January 1998.

According to initial reports, Bulent Ecevit, Kemal Dervis, Hussam El-Din Ozkan, Rejep Tayyip Erdogan, Ismail Cem, Recep Kuttan will run for Istanbul constituencies. Ecevit will run against Dervis in Istanbul’s first constituency.

The election committee announced that 19 political parties presented their electoral lists Wednesday afternoon. The Dehap party, made up of four leftist parties was given until Thursday, September 12, to present the list. Other parties were given a two-day deadline.

Tansu Ciller, head of The Right Path Party (RPP), opted to run for elections in her hometown, Moghla Governorate, instead of going for a tough electoral battle in Istanbul. Ciller faced a tough challenge in 1999 elections in Istanbul, and was very close to checking out of the race.

Meanwhile, Motherland Party (MP) withdrew its threat to quit the government. However, statements by the deputy of the MP, Jinjjiez Alteen Qaya, after the end of meetings of the party’s Central Committee, were vague and not decisive. Qaya said that the Central Committee authorized Missut Yalmizh, the MP leader, to “take the necessary steps, whether for staying (with the government), or withdrawing.”

Turkish political analyst, Fikrit Billa, believes the Motherland Party “may quit the ruling coalition once the oppositions supports its call for withdrawing trust from the government before the parliament.”

For his part, deputy head of Sa’adah (Happiness) Party (HP), Muhammad Bakr Oghlu, declared that his party supports ending the current coalition government, and forming a new one, even if that means postponing the coming elections.

However, head of the HP, Ragaay Quti, doubted the intentions of forming the new government, sought by Yilmazh. In a press conference Wednesday, he wondered about the purpose of forming a new government. “Is it just to delay the elections?”

The embattled Prime Minister, Ecevit, for his part, declared Wednesday that Yilmazh asked him Tuesday, September 10, to postpone the elections, but Ecevit refused.

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