Candidate shot dead in countdown to Turkish poll

An independent parliamentary candidate has been murdered in Istanbul as tensions rise in the approach to this weekend's elections, billed as one of the most crucial in Turkey's history.

Tuncay Seyranlioglu, 42, died in hospital after being shot in his car in the centre of the city while he was on the way home from a television appearance on Monday night. Police arrested three suspects early yesterday, but the reasons for the killing remain unclear. Mr Seyranlioglu's killing may have been unrelated to Sunday's vote and police have so far refused to comment on a motive for the murder - the businessman had previously been accused of fraud.

Across the country meanwhile, the issues dividing parties cut to the root of Turkey's complex identity - secular and Muslim, balanced between East and West.

In May, elections were brought forward from November after a court blocked the Islamic-rooted government's attempts to elect a head of state whose wife wears a headscarf. Polls suggest the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will win up to 40 per cent of the vote, 6 per cent more than in 2002, enough to ensure it can govern alone. But with right-wing nationalists set to win the 10 per cent of national votes required for parliamentary representation, AKP is almost certain to fall short of the two-thirds majority it needs to elect a president and push through constitutional change.

For international investors, happy with AKP's pro-Western, pro-market policies but wary of its sometimes confrontational relations with secularists in the judiciary and army, this is an ideal outcome. Earlier this week, Istanbul's stock exchange - more than 70 per cent foreign-owned - shot to historic highs.

Hakan Yavuz, a political scientist and the editor of a book on the AKP, thinks investors are over-optimistic. The parliament that Turkey will wake up to next week, he said, will contain Kurdish nationalists, Turkish nationalists, ultra-secularists and the AKP, "an incendiary collection". He said: "Turkey desperately needs to bridge its divisions, but it looks set to elect a parliament that will consolidate them."

The first point of tension will be renewed elections for the traditionally secularist post of president. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister, has signalled a willingness to compromise and his new parliamentary group contains a handful of centrist candidates aimed at assuaging fears that he is trying to chip away at Turkey's secularist structure.

But many still doubt the AKP. Ersin Oktay, an Istanbul businessman, said: "Their economics is good," referring to the 27 quarters of uninterrupted growth. "But I don't trust them. I'll be voting for the secularists, though I hope to God they don't get into government." His horror at the secularist main opposition party's descent into Hugo Chavez-style economic nationalism is shared by many educated Turks.

And the AKP has failed to win over the 10 million Turkish Alevis, a Shia sect that has long been persecuted by the country's Sunni majority. "Window-dressing," says Izzettin Dogan, head of the Alevi group, referring to AKP's decision to field a well-known Alevi writer among its candidates on Sunday. "No self-respecting Alevi would vote for this party."