Turkey's AK Party struggles to hold center ground

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party hopes to project a moderate image by fielding more women and entrepreneurs as candidates in July's election, but it may struggle to retain the support of urban middle class voters.

The AK Party's recent handling of a presidential election has exposed deep divisions over the role of religion in this Muslim but secular state.

Put under pressure by mass public rallies, the army and a court ruling, the government was forced to withdraw its presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, an ex-Islamist, and to call early parliamentary polls to avert a full-blown political crisis.

"This will be the most important election we've had for decades. And it is taking place in a very polarizing situation," said Suat Kiniklioglu, head of the Ankara-based German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"The AK Party has realized it has not become as accepted or as mainstream as it thought it had. They know they need to make an extra effort now to win over middle-of-the-road voters."

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right AK Party has delivered nearly five years of stable one-party government, stellar economic growth, tumbling inflation, surging foreign investment and the start of European Union membership talks.

But Turkey's secular elite, including army generals and top judges, distrust the party's Islamist past and accuse it of wanting to erode the separation of state and religion.

The distrust goes beyond the elite. Millions of middle class Turks joined the rallies in major cities over the past month in favor of secularism and against what they see as the creeping influence of Islam in daily life and the state bureaucracy.

The AK Party springs from a banned Islamist party. Erdogan and other party leaders are pious Muslims whose wives wear the Islamic headscarf. But the AK Party denies any Islamist agenda and says it is a democratic party that reflects the diversity of modern Turkey.

Many middle class urban Turks voted for the party in 2002, because they saw no alternative to the discredited political elite at the time.

The AK Party again needs this vote if it wants to secure another term in office as a single party, opinion polls show.

While some analysts say a coalition government headed by the AK Party could make reforms difficult, others believe such a setup could ease tensions with the secular establishment.

A BROAD CHURCH

The AK Party's core supporters are religious conservatives in provincial Turkey.

"The AK Party has many devout believers, many liberals too, and people of different religions," said AK party lawmaker Egemen Bagis, an adviser to Erdogan .