ANKARA - When an on-line statement in April by Turkey's military blocked presidential elections, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called snap polls, but the vote Sunday is unlikely to resolve the matter of who really runs the country, analysts say.
The election campaign has been dominated by the impact of the statement posted late at night on the General Staff website, a powerful reminder of the clout the armed forces still carry in Turkey's democracy and of how far they could go to preserve their grip.
"The genie is out of the bottle and it will take time to put it back in. It could be three to five years before civilian-military ties become what they should be," commented political and foreign affairs expert Professor Ihsan Dagi.
With Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) leading opinion surveys by a large margin, a fresh confrontation with the generals could be in store after the elections.
The crisis erupted in April when Erdogan tried to install his right-hand man, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, as head of state amid secularist fears that the AKP still has a secret Islamist agenda and is seeking to undermine the strict separation of state and religion.
The army, which has toppled four governments since 1960, threatened to intervene to defend the secular order. The presidential election in parliament was called off on a ruling from the Constitutional Court.
This was not a crisis over Turkey's secularism, but over its political system in which the president keeps the government in check, with the military appointed as an all-dominating guardian, political commentator Ali Bayramoglu said.
"What we see is a power struggle," he said. "It began with the military resisting against the threat of seeing its custodian's role reduced if the AKP secures the presidency," he said.
The military's discomfort is rooted in the past five years during which the AKP enacted reforms aimed to ease the country's entry into the European Union, some of them clipping the army's wings.
It also embraced a strict free market policy, turning Turkey into a high-growth country with record foreign direct investment and a desire to open up to the world.
"In such a rapidly changing society, one cannot talk of the army having a special role," Dagi said.
But in its counterattack, the army found an ally in millions of Turks who took to the streets in mass demonstrations -- many organized by pro-secular associations with memberships crowded with retired officers -- with slogans against the AKP, the EU and globalization.
"When you look at the big picture, Turkey is a stable country with five years of growth behind it; when you look at the little picture, for millions of middle-class Turks who perceive the AKP as a threat, it is not stable at all," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkey research programme at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The run-up to the election has also seen generals try to corner the government on the highly sensitive issue of mounting violence by separatist Kurdish rebels.
The military pressed for authorization to attack rebel bases in neighbouring northern Iraq; Erdogan firmly said the decision lies with the government and told the military to mop up terrorist elements at home before going on a cross-border chase.
"This was an attempt to legitimize a more militaristic structure in Turkey and thus restrict the political arena under the pretext of security," Dagi said.
Once the new parliament is formed, its first job will be to elect the next president and the make-up of the house will determine how smoothly Turkey will weather the process, Cagaptay said.
If the AKP comes to power with a sufficient parliamentary majority to elect the next president on its own and does not seek a consensus candidate, trouble is likely.
Such power could embolden the AKP and turn it into "Islamists on steroids", as perceived by anti-AKP nationalists and the left, Cagaptay said.
"In other words, you would have an AKP that has swallowed the center-right, one of the most powerful currents in Turkish politics," he said.
Last month, the AKP rushed through parliament legislative amendments for the president to be elected by popular vote, but Erdogan has since said that the next head of state will be elected by parliament and that he will seek a consensus with the other parties on the right candidate for the job.
"If everyone has learned their lesson and there is consensus on the next president, there will not be a crisis. If that is not the case, it is difficult to say what will happen," Bayramoglu said.

07/18/2007 03:42 GMT