Victorious — and Banned

By law, Recep Tayyip Erdogan should not even be in politics. In 1998, the charismatic former mayor of Istanbul was convicted under Turkey’s religious-hate-speech statutes for reciting a poem that contained the lines: “Our minarets are our bayonets, our believers are our soldiers.” He served four months in jail and was banned from public office for life.

Yet last week the clean-cut populist was back. His pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AK) drubbed Turkey’s secular old guard in the general election, amassing nearly two-thirds of the seats in parliament — albeit with only one-third of the popular vote. With only one other grouping, the old-line Republican People’s Party (CHP), making it into parliament, the AK will be the first party to rule alone in 15 years.

Erdogan may be the people’s choice, but he still can’t be Prime Minister, unless his government overturns the laws that barred him from serving in the first place and courts agree to lift the ban. Speaking to Time before the vote, Erdogan hinted that if he won a majority his government would try this route, though doing so could upset critics who suspect him of a fundamentalist agenda. In the short term, party officials are expected this week to appoint a replacement leader who will form a new government. Erdogan may not be in office, but he will be in power. “He won’t take a back seat,” says political analyst Mehmet Ali Birand.

Turkey’s problem dates back to Kemal Atatrk, the army officer who founded the republic almost 80 years ago and who imposed stringent laws to keep fundamentalism at bay. Erdogan, 48, is just the latest politician to run afoul of such laws which — in the hands of zealous courts and a secularist army — have led to the banning of dozens of politicians and a handful of political parties over the years.

Born to a working-class family (his father was a sea captain) on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, Erdogan moved at age 13 with his family to Istanbul, where he joined the youth wing of an Islamic party founded by Necmettin Erbakan, architect of Turkey’s political Islamic movement. Erbakan saw in the young football fanatic an ambitious orator of considerable charm, especially for the estimated 60% of the population under 35. “I have been watching Tayyip Bey for some time,” says Aslihan Dede, 21, using a term of respect. “He is one of us.”

Elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994, Erdogan banned drinking from city-owned cafs, but also resurrected a failing fresh water supply and cleared the trash from the city’s cobblestone streets. “He’s a perfectionist,” says Mehmet Muezzinoglu, a physician and party colleague who has known Erdogan since high school. Rusen Cakir, an Erdogan biographer and expert on political Islam, stresses the politician’s provincial upbringing and working-class values. “Unlike Erbakan, who was a spiritual father, Erdogan is more familiar, like a brother.” He is also, says Cakir, a pragmatist: “He is Muslim but he is looking for a new deal.” Proof of that pragmatism came when Erdogan sent his two daughters to study at Indiana University in the U.S., in part to avoid Turkey’s prohibition against wearing Muslim headscarves in public buildings. “He could have sent his daughters to Tehran,” notes a Western diplomat. “That says a lot.”

Erdogan’s biggest challenge now is balancing the requirements of Turkey’s secular establishment against the demands of the estimated 8% of Turks who would welcome the imposition of Islamic law, or Shari’a. The AK party also faces huge challenges once it takes office, including a December meeting in Copenhagen at which Turkey hopes to be granted a date to start negotiations to join the European Union. That may be difficult, given the comment of Valry Giscard d’Estaing, head of the E.U.’s constitutional convention, that, in his opinion, Turkey’s admission to the club would mean “the end of the European Union.” Plus, the terms of the next year’s International Monetary Fund loan package have to be hammered out, and a decision made on whether to back an unpopular U.S.-led war on Iraq.

Erdogan’s first act as Turkey’s non-Prime Minister will be to tour Europe, starting with an old enemy, Greece. He is hoping to allay fears about an Islamist threat. And then he must convince doubters at home.