TURKEY:Turkey's presidential election was in disarray yesterday after the main opposition party went to court to block a parliamentary vote it said was invalidated by low turnout.
The secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) was one of several opposition parties to boycott yesterday's vote in an effort to deprive prime minister Tayyip Erdogan's party of the 367 lawmakers it said were needed for a quorum.
Despite last-minute efforts by Mr Erdogan to drum up independent support for his candidate, the boycott succeeded: only nine independents joined the government's 352 deputies.
Mr Erdogan's AKP has more than enough votes to get its candidate elected in the third round of voting, when only half of the seats are enough for victory.
But it now has to wait to hear the constitutional court's decision on the case brought by its political opponents. A judgment is likely before the second round of voting next week and could go either way.
It is a major coup for the CHP, which has led the secularist charge against a government it claims has not renounced political Islam.
Not everybody is likely to be so pleased, though. If the court invalidates yesterday's vote, analysts say, early elections are highly likely, signalling an end to the unprecedented political stability Turkey has enjoyed since general elections in 2002.
Above all, the court case puts in question the presidential candidacy of foreign minister Abdullah Gul, a man widely respected both inside and outside Turkey.
News of his candidacy on Tuesday, after months of uncertainty, pushed Istanbul's stock exchange up to record highs. US rating agency Fitch even went so far as to hint it might raise Turkey's rating later this year.
Mr Gul will "be good for Turkey and good for Europe", said Graham Watson, head of the European Parliament's liberal faction, on Thursday.
"As a progressive pro-European, he has the ability to inject new momentum into [ Turkey's] EU accession proceedings."
Yet much of the euphoria over Mr Gul was based on the slight misperception that Mr Erdogan's decision to choose him represented a compromise with secularists.
For all his soft-spokenness, Mr Gul has always been closer to traditional Turkish political Islam than Mr Erdogan. In many ways his selection was a victory for AKP conservatives.
"Gul was neither Erdogan's first or second candidate for president," said Erdal Saglam, a columnist with the daily Hurriyet. First was Mr Erdogan himself. Second was a caretaker president from further down the party ranks, one of the few AKP members whose wife does not cover her head.
That was something AKP's number three, Bulent Arinc - parliamentary speaker and leader of the conservative wing of what is a fairly diverse party - could not tolerate. Last week he promised that his party would "elect a religious president". This week, he warned Mr Erdogan that he would personally stand as a candidate if Mr Gul was not selected.
Faced with the threat of splits in the party, Mr Erdogan gave in and plumped for Mr Gul. The choice ultimately suited him too: Mr Gul's wife Hayrunnisa wears a headscarf. With her ensconced in the presidential palace, Mr Erdogan could turn to his supporters and say he had not caved in to secularist pressure.
For analyst Mehmet Ali Birand, the clear winner of these last-minute machinations is Mr Arinc. "His power within the party has grown in full view of the public," he said. "He's now number two." But like other pro-European analysts, Mr Birand has another reason for wanting to see Mr Gul stay in parliament.
When Turkey's EU project came close to collapse in December 2004, it was Mr Gul who saved it, he said. "Nobody in AKP believes in the EU as much as Gul. Nobody has followed the reforms as tenaciously as he."
Columnist with the daily newspaper Milliyet Metin Munir sees another potential silver lining to today's legal cloud.
Disgusted like many Turkish secularists with the CHP's abandonment of policymaking in favour of crisis-mongering, he thinks CHP leader Deniz Baykal has alienated many.
Early elections, he hopes, will rid Turkey for once and for all of a party he compares to "a feudal statelet".
"Baykal is the Titanic, and the coming elections are the iceberg," said Mr Munir.