Turkey, too, sees gains by Islamists

Still, analysts say, there were 16 political parties to chose from in Turkey – 27 in Morocco – and yet voters chose the one that was known for its Islamic foundations. Perhaps most voters for AK Party were motivated by Turkey's internal economic issues. But some observers say that the war in Afghanistan and US plans for military intervention in Iraq, have had an impact on how many Muslims – Turks included – view their place in the world.

"Many people in Turkey and elsewhere in the Islamic world are watching Muslims suffering around the globe," says Ozdem Sanberk, an analyst with the Turkish Economic and Social Foundation, a think-tank in Istanbul. "The masses in the Islamic world don't have parties, don't have parliaments, and they feel besieged in their own countries. Many of them can't change their leaders - and yet they see that the US is supporting those regimes.

"In Turkey, we can change them, and in one night they are swept away," he says. "That means maybe Turkey can be a model for others."

It has been a model, on some level, for Pakistan.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf spent part of his childhood in Turkey and became a fan of Kemal Ataturk, the father of Turkish secularism. Both countries have powerful militaries that could step in if Islamists are perceived as going too far. Pakistan has dealt with Muslim politics by trying to show that it is the real guardian of Islam, while Turkey has shown the last group of Islamist politicians – most recently in 1997 – that if they get too ambitious they will be shown the door.

In Pakistan, it used to be a political truism that religious parties were noisy but small, and had never won more than 10 seats. But in the elections last month, a conservative coalition of religious parties won 59 seats in the National Assembly.

Monday, the country's prodemocracy parties said they have reached a tentative deal to form a coalition government with the Islamic coalition, which has been a staunch supporter of Afghanistan's Taliban and an opponent of Pakistan's alliance with the United States in the war on terror.

If the agreement goes through, The Associated Press reports that the prime minister's spot would likely go to Fazl-ur Rahman, the head of Jamiat-e-ulema Islam or Party of Islamic clerics.

To explain the growth of religious parties, some observers say the finger of blame points directly at President Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. During the past three years of military rule, rallies by mainstream political parties have been restricted and the two most prominent political leaders – former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif – have been pushed out of Pakistan and out of politics altogether.

The irony is that Musharraf was repressing the very parties that might have supported him, says Afrasiab Khattak, the Peshawar-based chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

"During these three years of military rule, the religious right had the advantage of a sustained campaign, because they were supposedly [speaking only] on religious matters. The other parties were not allowed to hold rallies, to organize," says Mr. Khattak.

Ardeshir Cowasjee, a Karachi-based columnist for the leading Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, says that the success of Pakistan's religious parties is based on demographic trends. Pakistan's high birth rate has produced 20 million more Pakistanis since the last elections in 1998.

"That's 10 a minute, 600 an hour, 14,400 a day, 5.3 million a year," he says. "That means 160,000 new classrooms, and [the state doesn't] have the money to build them." So these children go to Pakistan's tens of thousands of madrassas or religious schools, Cowasjee says.

"Pakistan is a military government, while Turkey is a civilian government backed by the military or a military watchdog, so they're not that different in terms of limits for political activity," adds Shahin. "They allow political expression, but it's within a well-calculated political game. It's like a soccer match, the regimes are the referees, and they're allowing the players to play."

That means they could call a time-out, or take them out of the game altogether. Knowing that, most here think that the AK Party will not try to anger the referees, at least not initially. "They come from Islamist roots. They are in a genuine effort to embrace modern values as well, to reach a synthesis," Sedat Ergin, the Ankara bureau chief of the Hurriyet newspaper, says of Turkey's new leadership.

• Staff writer Scott Baldauf in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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