ISTANBUL, June 10, 2011 (AFP) Strong economic growth and easing unemployment are the Turkish prime minister's main trump cards as he heads for a fresh election win Sunday. But his over-confidence after nine years in power has started to irk businessmen.
In power since 2002, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's business-friendly Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) has built much of its popularity on economic success, analysts say.
Gross domestic product grew by a spectacular 8.9 percent in 2010, outpacing global recovery. That is in stark contrast to the economic woes, marked sometimes by three-digit inflation, that haunted Turkey under shaky coalition governments in the past.
Under the AKP, per capita income has doubled, reaching $10,079 dollars in 2010. Even the jobless rate has recorded some limited improvement, standing at 11.5 percent in March, down from 14.4 percent in the same period last year.
"If a significant segment of the middle class supports the AKP, it is not because the party promotes Muslim values, but because it represents stability," economist Ahmet Insel told AFP.
"The number of poor people... has dropped considerably over the past decade," he stressed.
Erdogan has declared himself the guarantor of "stability" -- one of the key words in his election campaign. He has pledged a fresh infrastructure drive, including grandiose projects such as the construction of a water canal running parallel to the Bosphorus Strait.
The AKP's ambitious targets for 2023, the 100th anniversary of the modern Turkish republic, see the country in the top 10 of the world's largest economies, with a per capita income of $25,000.
In 2009, the global financial crisis resulted in a 4.9-percent contraction in the Turkish economy and swelled the ranks of the jobless.
That caused the AKP's popularity to fall to 39 percent in local polls the same year, compared to the 47 percent the party had won in the 2007 general elections.
"But those eight points are largely recovered," economist Seyfettin Gursel said.
"This is not suprising considering the very strong economic growth in 2010, the decrease in unemployment and debts, and a huge increase at the stock market over the past 14 months," he added.
His economic credits may be sound, but Erdogan has raised concern recently over his future political path. There has been a mounting intolerance to criticism, marked by frequent spats with respected business leaders, most recently over creeping restrictions on the Internet.
"The AKP's leadership of (democratic) change used to be one of its main appeals. But now we see it is becoming increasingly conservative, with its laws and regulations," said Ferda Kertmelioglu, the vice-president of the Young Businessmen Association of Turkey.
"There are issues for which we can sacrifice even stability," he stressed.
For the business community, a third straight victory for the AKP in the polls is a forgone conclusion.
But the number of parliamentary seats the party would win remains crucial for its plans to rewrite Turkey's constitution, the legacy of a 1980 military coup.
"What the markets wonder about is the AKP's score," said Inan Demir, chief economist at Finansbank.
The moderate offshoot of a banned Islamist movement, the AKP is expected to win between 45 and 50 percent of the vote, according to opinion polls.
But questions linger on whether it could secure an overwhelming majority to push ahead with a constitutional overhaul on its own, without seeking compromise with other parties.
Clinching 367 of the 550 seats would unable the AKP to amend the constitution unilaterally; 330 seats would be enough for an overhaul that would require an approval at a referendum.
"These are the only developments the markets see as being able to influence the trend," Demir said.
