Word: erdogan
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When the state security court sent Istanbul's Mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan to jail in 1998, his pro-Islamic Virtue Party wept crocodile tears. The courts, guardians of the secular Turkish state, had been lying in wait for the charismatic Erdogan. So when he recited a well-known poem at a political rally, it was their chance to pounce. Their verdict was that quoting "minarets are our bayonets"; amounted to using religion to incite hatred - but many believe his greater crime was appealing to voters who wouldn't normally opt for a party with an Islamic reputation. The Virtue Party...
...Erdogan's turn to weep tears, but of joy. In 1999 he was released after serving four months of a 10-month sentence. On June 22 Turkey's Constitutional Court banned the Virtue Party for being a "focal point of anti-secular"; activities, a development that leaves Erdogan, 47, in perfect position to lead a large number of rebel M.P.s, tired of the autocratic leadership of the disbanded Virtue Party, into a new party of their...
...Opinion surveys suggest that an Erdogan-led party - one that would battle corruption and value individual liberties above the needs of the state - would stand a good chance at the polls. Turkey's economic crisis has cut deep, and many of those hurt by unemployment and rising prices are looking for someone to voice their woes. Some argue that getting the buses to run on time and water from the reservoirs to the taps in a city like Istanbul, home to nearly a fifth of the Turkish population, is good training for running the country at large. Erdogan was born...
...Erdogan confronts one major obstacle, though. Despite his release from jail, he faces a five-year ban from holding political office. Turkey's Minister of Justice has already suggested that any new party founded by Erdogan cannot be legally established. The mayor will contest and even defy the ban, hoping that parliament will keep its pledge to make the amendments to the constitution that would get him off the hook. But he may well have to lead from the wings, not the best spot from which to shift the Islamic movement into the political center...