Turkey’s Prime Minister. The enigmatic Mr Erdogan

Europeans struggle to understand the character of Turkey's leader

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN was the only pupil to volunteer when his primary-school headmaster called on students to pray one day. But when he was told to prostrate himself over a newspaper on the floor, the boy refused, for it was covered with racy pictures. Duly chastened, his headmaster produced a tablecloth instead.

Like so many tales from the Turkish prime minister's youth, this incident highlights both his devotion to Islam and his leadership instinct. Much has been written about Mr Erdogan's rise from a poor, pious family in Turkey's Black Sea region, through his footballing days to his stint as mayor of Istanbul. The tale of his transformation from a militant who was once imprisoned for reading an Islamist poem in public into a conservative democrat, as he now labels himself, is also well-known. Yet to many fellow European heads of government, this 50-year-old son of a sea captain, who speaks no foreign languages, remains something of an enigma.

As the European Union prepares for what will surely be the hardest membership talks it has ever held, some in Brussels worry that Mr Erdogan may yet seek to steer Turkey away from its traditional secularism. Many more want to know how attuned Mr Erdogan is to European thinking - and how long he will stay.

The answer to this last question is: a long time. Mr Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are supported by over half of all Turks, according to recent polls. The only opposition party represented in parliament, the leftish Republican People's Party, is mired in internal squabbles. The notoriously corrupt, secular right-wing parties are in disarray. The biggest threat to Mr Erdogan might once have come from the generals, but as Turkey moves closer to Europe their powers are being trimmed. Most pundits reckon that Mr Erdogan will easily win the elections that are due in 2007.

Yet Mr Erdogan has grander ambitions. Members of his circle whisper that he would like to become president, but only if he were armed with real power. A consummate strategist, Mr Erdogan apparently plans to get parliament, where his party commands a firm majority, to nominate a party member to replace the incumbent, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, when his term expires in 2007. Mr Erdogan would then push through parliament constitutional changes to make the presidency more powerful; and, finally, would catapult himself into the presidential palace.

This scenario alarms secular Turks, who fear that Mr Erdogan might use his muscle to expand the role of religion in public life. The real worry should be that more power could encourage his authoritarian streak. Even today only a handful of his advisers, among them Cuneyd Zapsu, a wealthy businessman, and Omer Celik, his youthful speech-writer, dare to disagree openly with Mr Erdogan. He can be hot-tempered and blunt. He once upbraided a journalist for having alcohol on his breath. He can be patronising to women. Recently he told farmers who clamoured for subsidies that “the nation does not have to keep working just to feed you.” He can also be unpredictable, as when he unexpectedly sought to criminalise adultery in September, sending shockwaves through the EU.

Friends paint a somewhat different picture, of a humorous and warm man, utterly loyal to his friends, who adores children and is influenced by his wife. It is also a picture of a politician whose ambition and willingness to take risks are tempered by pragmatism. “Yes, his first reaction is anger when you contradict him,” says one. “But he'll think things over and if he concludes that you are right, he'll tell you so the next day.” That is how the adultery crisis was defused. European leaders warned Mr Erdogan of the consequences and he backed down. “He likes to be told the truth,” says one European ambassador who has spent time with the prime minister. If, Allah willing, negotiations with the EU start next year, Mr Erdogan and the Turkish people should be getting plenty of that.

Feature says that Europeans struggle to understand the character of Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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