Turkey has entered a dangerous political crisis. The heavy-handed intervention by the army in the stand-off between the neo-Islamist government and the secular establishment over electing the next president has turned the clock back on Turkey’s emergence as a fully-fledged liberal democracy. It risks coarsening public and political life to the point of open confrontation.

The generals’ declaration – that they are the “absolute” guardians of the secular republic created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – is a pronunciamiento from another era. An army that has ousted four elected governments since 1960 – the last one in a “soft” coup against an Islamist administration 10 years ago – is threatening to do so again.