Head of leading party banned from election

The leader of the front-running party in the Turkish elections was banned on 20 September 2002 from participating in the November 2002 polls due to a previous conviction for inciting hatred on religious grounds. The ban is likely to harm Turkish efforts to persuade the EU leaders at the European Council Summit in Copenhagen in December 2002 to give a date for starting Turkey's accession negotiations in return for complying with the EU's membership criterion of a fully-functioning democracy.