Turkish leaders opt for early election

THE leaders of Turkey's three-party ruling coalition agreed yesterday to hold early elections in November, as the government of ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit lost its majority in parliament.

The leaders said in a statement that they had reached agreement for polls on November 3 making elections a likelihood, though parliament must still convene to call for a vote.

It appeared that the 77-year-old Ecevit who has been ill and who has been abandoned by dozens of lawmakers from his party would attempt to remain in his post in the meantime despite pressure he resign.

The political crisis throws the leadership of Turkey, a NATO member and key US ally in the region, into question at a time when Washington is trying to win its support for military action against neighbouring Iraq. The Pentagon's No 2 official, Paul Wolfowitz, was in Ankara meeting Ecevit and Turkey's top generals even as the political drama played out.

Six more lawmakers from Ecevit's party resigned yesterday, leaving his three-party coalition with just 275 seats in the 550-member parliament.

Ecevit had earlier suggested that he would resign if his Government lost its majority. But he and the other coalition leaders, meeting yesterday, appear to have decided to stay in power and challenge the opposition to bring the Government down.

Opposition parties must find 276 votes to overthrow the Government in a vote of no confidence. Opposition parties and independents currently hold 262 seats, but it is not clear if all of them would vote to overthrow the Government. There are 13 empty seats in parliament.

Elections are not scheduled until 2004, but two of the three parties in Ecevit's coalition have been pressing to hold them sooner after months of bickering over reforms the European Union has demanded as a condition for possible membership.

Nationalists fierce opponents of reform and now the largest bloc in Ecevit's coalition had already called for a November 3 poll.

The centre-right Motherland Party, which backs reform, wants elections even sooner, in September.

At the same time, 59 legislators have left Ecevit's Democratic Left Party, many of them eyeing a new political party formed by Ecevit's former foreign minister, Ismail Cem, to push for the EU-oriented reforms.