Court ban on Islamist Party: New problems for Ankara

Getting the Islamist Virtue Party banned, said the Turkish prosecutor's office three years ago, would be a real privilege -- but the Constitutional Court's decision last Friday that actually did ban the party has given Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's ruling coalition a real headache.

Suddenly, just as the court's ruling came into effect, no one really wanted it any more. They had good reasons for not wanting it, too. Although the Inquisition-like verdict will weaken political Islamism in Turkey at first, it won't make the movement disappear. Au contraire -- the court's ban will probably strengthen the movement in the long run.

The decision gives the Virtue Party an opportunity to tailor a new look for itself. The reformers in the now-banned party have been biding their time, waiting for their day to come. The will turn into a whole new party of conservative but pro-European Islamists. The Virtue Party's conservatives will turn their back on the West and go back to their fundamentalist roots. Whether that ends up strengthening support for the anti-Western forces in the country depends largely on how well the present government succeeds at leading Turkey out of its current economic crisis.

The court's ruling proves that Turkey faces political as well as economic turmoil. The country has a constitution that Europe dislikes because it reeks of the spirit of its 1980 military coup. It has a legal system too timid to tell that to the government and it has a parliament that has pledged to reform the constitution but that has yet to show any sign of urgency about doing that.

-- Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany.