Until very recently, Turkey was an emerging economic success story; a role model for Islamic humankind. Today the country is increas-ingly associated with instability and un-certainty.

Tension between the old, secularist elite and the Islamic-rooted pro-reform ruling party has reached a climax. The chief prosecutor wants to ban from politics the governing party - a party that received almost half of all votes at last year's general election. Economic indicators are turning red. The Turkish situation is exacerbated by the fact that everything has occurred just as the global economy has hit dire straits. So what happened?