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ANKARA,
November 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Turkey's popular Islamic
party, the Justice and Development Party (AK), expected to win Sunday's
general elections, was spared a major judicial blow Friday, November 1,
when the country's top court adjourned a bid to ban it until after the
vote.
The
AK, which the military-led secularist establishment suspects of
fundamentalist leanings, will now take part in the election without fear
of immediate sanctions, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Public
prosecutors, who want the AK party to be banned, called on the
constitutional court to immediately suspend Recep Tayyip Erdogan as
party chairman pending a final decision on the future of the party.
However,
the constitutional court adjourned hearings on whether to suspend the
charismatic Erdogan, 48, and gave the party 15 days to submit its
defense - nearly two weeks after the election.
Turkey's
chief prosecutor is seeking to ban AK on the grounds that it allowed
Erdogan to stay on as party leader, despite the conviction issued
against him in 1999 which banned him from practicing political activity
for three years, to expire November 3.
The
case, however, will be hanging over the AK party as a sword until the
court completes lengthy deliberation, which could take months.
Erdogan
has already been barred from running for parliament because of his
conviction.
The
judicial onslaught against the party attracted criticism from Turkey's
top ally the United States at a time when Washington is pressing the
European Union to accept Turkey as a member.
"We
oppose the banning of political parties that are expressing their views
in a peaceful and democratic manner," U.S. State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday, October 31.
Criticism
was even harsher at home.
The
country's most influential rights group, the Human Rights Association,
declared Friday that the ban on Erdogan and several other prominent
figures made the elections undemocratic.
"The
will of the people is being obstructed with bans and restrictions unseen
in any democratic country," Husnu Ondul, the head of the group,
said.
"Turkey
is going to another election as a country with anti-democratic and
authoritarian qualities," he added.
The
E.U. has also criticized the bans as damaging to Turkey's aspirations to
start membership talks next year.
Erdogan
was jailed in 1998 when he was mayor of Istanbul for reciting a poem at
a rally which ran: "Mosques are our barracks, the minarets our
bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers."
He
has not committed any violent act.
Erdogan
has taken a fresh moderate Islamic approach with his agenda mainly
focused on Turkish youths programs.
The
AK party has refused to name its candidate for prime minister in the
place of Erdogan until after the elections.
The
Turkish military, which has carried out three coups since the 1960s, led
a harsh secular campaign against the country's first Islamic Prime
Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1997 and forced him to resign.
Erdogan
and most of his supporters were members of Erbakan's now banned party.
But
AK says it learned from the past and presents itself as a center-right
movement.
AK's
rising popularity reflects a growing frustration among the impoverished
masses with the fractured secular mainstream parties, which produced
weak governments over the years and failed to resolve economic problems,
according to Turkish observers.
