ANKARA,
August 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Former prime minister
Necmettin Erbakan, one of Turkey's best-known Islamic leaders, plans to
run in early elections despite a five-year ban on political activity for
anti-secular activities that got him ousted after a one-year term, a
close colleague said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Erbakan
said he has been told by attorneys that there is no obstacle preventing
him from standing as an independent candidate," said Recai Kutan,
head of the pro-Islamic Felicity Party (SP), one of the successors to
Erbakan's banned Welfare Party.
Kutan,
who spoke on Turkish television late Wednesday, August 14, said Erbakan
would consult first with colleagues before announcing in which province
to run.
The
November 3 election comes at a crucial moment with Turkey, the only
Muslim member of NATO and a candidate for E.U. membership, mired in
economic and political turmoil triggered by the illness of 77-year-old
Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.
Mainstream
parties are also fractured, leaving a pro-Islamic group that also has
roots in Welfare topping the polls for the election, which was moved
ahead 18 months after Ecevit's coalition lost its majority in
parliament.
Erbakan,
76, is one of the country's pioneers in trying to integrate Islamic
measures into Turkey's strictly secular regime - a bid that got him in
trouble when a military-led campaign forced him to step down in 1997
after only a year as modern Turkey's first Islamic premier.
The
following year, the Constitutional Court banned him from politics for
five years and dissolved the Welfare Party for what it described as
"anti-secular" activities.
But
he is known as a tough political survivor and Turkey's electoral
officials are to rule on whether he can stand in the upcoming vote.
After
it was outlawed, Welfare regrouped into the Virtue Party, which was also
banned for anti-secular activities a year ago.
Its
members then split into two rival groups: Kutan's Felicity Party, which
has 46 deputies in the 550-member parliament, and the Justice and
Development Party (AK), which has 53 seats and is now topping opinion
polls.
According
to press reports, Erbakan wants Felicity to form an election alliance
with the pro-Kurdish People's Party (HADEP), a group threatened with
closure for alleged links with Kurdish rebels in the southeast.
Kutan
said his group had "not yet had contacts with any party to create
an alliance but that does not mean we won't form one," reported
AFP.
HADEP
failed to pass the 10 percent mark to get seats in parliament in the
last election in 1999, but won several municipal polls in the Kurdish
majority southeast.
On
July 31, AK’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed a parliamentary
decision to hold early elections and expressed confidence that his party
would win the November 3 polls.
"God
willing, the Justice and Development Party [AK] will win the elections
and come to power alone," Erdogan told NTV television after
parliament agreed to hold snap elections brought forward from 2004.
Recent
opinion polls have indicated that Erdogan's party would come in first
with about 20 percent of the vote if elections were held immediately.
Turkey’s
ruling secular elite view the prospect of such a victory as potentially
destabilizing for the mainly Muslim but strictly secular nation.
Embattled
Ecevit had tried to block the early election, claiming that an AK
victory would threaten the country's secular system, which is staunchly
guarded by the powerful military.
Ecevit
went as far as warning that any gains by pro-Islamic and pro-Kurdish
parties in upcoming elections could have "grave consequences"
for the country.
But
Erdogan, who has recast himself as a conservative centrist favoring
Turkey's traditionally pro-Western orientation, has dismissed such
claims
