John Rapley

Last weekend's Turkish election delivered a surprising result. Victory by the ruling Islamist party was expected, but its scale - nearly half the electorate voted for the AK Party - caught many observers off guard.

The election was prompted when Turkey's all-powerful military helped to block the Government when, earlier this year, it tried to install an Islamist president. Turkey has a proud secularist tradition, in which the separation between mosque and state mirrors that seen in anti-clerical European countries like France. And the military has long been the ultimate guardian of this tradition, able (and willing) to depose governments of which it disapproves.

Once the military indicated it would not allow the ruling party to have its candidate, the Government took the issue to the voters. Turkey's electoral system, which bars small parties from Parliament, over-represents those parties which cross the minimum 10 per cent threshold. AK reckoned it might thus be able to gain the two-thirds of parliamentary seats needed to amend the constitution, enabling it to appoint its own presidential candidate.

Strategy

AK's resounding victory would appear to have vindicated its strategy. It looks like a very good share of the Turkish population has accepted the declarations of the AK Party that it has changed. Proud of Turkey's Muslim heritage, AK says it will nonetheless respect the country's pluralist traditions.

Indeed, the AK Government has aggressively pursued integration into the European Union, something once anathema to Islamists. On top of that, it has done a good job of managing the economy, thereby burnishing its credentials for prudence. All told, its image as a pro-Muslim, but also pro-Western political party seems established. Think of it as the Muslim equivalent of Christian democracy.

Nevertheless, if the election was a setback to the militant secularism of the traditional Turkish establishment, it is a bit soon to say that this moderate Islamist vision has really taken hold in Turkey. Because, in addition to Islamists, hard-line nationalists also came out of the election with an improved standing.

Nationalist tensions have been rising of late in Turkey. This is partly because the country's Kurdish minority, which harbours secessionist elements, has grown increasingly confident of late. The American-led invasion of Iraq enabled that country's Kurds to create a more or less autonomous region in the north, replete with almost all the trappings of statehood. Now that Turkish Kurds have a viable homeland on their borders, the temptations to link with it become strong.

Shelter

In the meantime, the Kurdish region of Iraq can provide shelter to Kurdish rebels active in Turkey. The Turkish military has always made clear that it will not tolerate the Kurdish part of Iraq becoming a base for enemy operations. Its intelligence agents are active in the region, and its soldiers stand by, ready to intervene if called upon.

Thus, one of the new government's first orders of business will be to decide what to do about the Kurds. Things could get complicated. While it will hold a majority of seats in Parliament, the AK Party will fall short of the two-thirds needed to amend the constitution, and thereby more easily bypass the military. It could thus form a coalition with independent Kurdish MPs. This, however, would infuriate the nationalists.

Faced with such rising pressure from both the military and nationalists, therefore, the new government will probably have to take some kind of action on the Kurdish issue. On the face of it, the Turkish election result is a vote for moderation, the free market and a buoyant economy. But not far from the surface, tensions are bubbling which could prove very challenging to this new government.