ANATOLY ZHDANOV/KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA for TIME MEN AT WORK: Meat vendors in Dyarbakir, the Kurdish area in the southeast

Erdogan's ascent has been closely watched in Turkey and abroad. His critics, notably in the country's staunchly secular establishment, say the party has a hidden Islamist agenda that it would try to impose on Turkey, especially if it won a majority. They say this might include the banning of alcohol in public places or the outlawing of swimsuit ads, though the AK party platform contains no hint of such measures. Critics also point to Erdogan's prominent role in the former Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998 for inciting religious hatred. And they remind voters of Erdogan's 1998 conviction for inciting hatred — during a political rally he recited a poem that reads in part "minarets are our bayonets, mosques are our barracks, believers are our soldiers." He served four months in prison, and was banned from holding public office for life.

Erdogan has gone to considerable lengths to distance himself from the Islamist label. The AK party's insignia features a modern-looking lightbulb symbolizing, as one party worker helpfully explained, "light." The sanitized headquarters in Ankara resemble an insurance office more than a den of fundamentalism. Speaking to Time dressed in a crisp blue suit and red tie, Erdogan insisted that he was a moderate in all things, and that he has no interest in imposing Shari'a, the strict form of Islamic law, in Turkey, even if it were permitted by law. And he denies outright that the AK is an Islamist party. "I am a Muslim, but I believe in a secular state," he says. "The expression Islamic party is disrespectful of Islam itself. Parties are fallible and Allah is not."

Saying anything else, of course, would land Erdogan in jail again. And at least some of his supporters, including the estimated 8% of Turks who are considered fundamentalist, would like to see Shari'a introduced in some form — though they are not permitted to say so. Mehmet Cinar, a 70-year-old retiree in the AK party stronghold of Konya, is a more typical supporter. "Turks are free to do what they want," he says. "But I'll be sorry for them when they go to hell." But according to one Erdogan aide, the AK is serious about its secularism. "We are not talking about a religious state," the aide says. "What we want is a state that respects faith, like the U.S."

It's a beguiling argument, but not everyone is convinced. "The people who control AK are much more extreme than they say," warns one senior Turkish official. Rusen Cakir, author of an Erdogan biography, says the AK leader could not change his philosophy even if he wanted to — doing so would alienate his constituency and deny who he is. "He's been an Islamist since he was 12," Cakir says. "He cannot betray his roots."

The Turkish state's heavyhanded treatment of Islam — a policy dating from the days of Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey who once banned Turks from wearing their beloved fez — may be Erdogan's biggest boon. Women are still prevented from wearing headscarves in universities, hospitals and other public buildings because the garments are viewed as "divisive." Gulden Sonmez, an Istanbul lawyer, says the state's intolerance of such displays of faith has been growing. "There would be no need for a call for Shari'a if you could practice religion freely," she says. Sonmez runs an office that has received some 1,800 complaints this year from young women, including high school students, "harassed" by police for defying the ban. Erdogan himself sent his two daughters to the U.S. to study to avoid the interdiction, which his party may try to strike down.

Some of the AK's backing derives less from religious fervor than from economic despair. "It's an economic protest vote," as Cakir puts it, against the disastrous performance of the Ecevit government, whose mismanagement helped bring Turkey to the brink of economic ruin. Though Erdogan's party is short on economists, as mayor of Istanbul he demonstrated a capacity for hard work and, notably, clean government.

That could be a big plus for most Turks, who are just as worried about getting food on the table as they are about wearing a headscarf. Soaring interest rates and falling investment have choked growth and left joblessness at its highest rate in 20 years. Tourism, a revenue mainstay, is reeling from the double blow of the Sept. 11 attacks and looming war in Iraq. Foreign capital has vanished.

In eastern Turkey, the economic crisis has hit hard. When the Turkish lire lost 50% of its value last year, businessman Bedrettin Karaboga, who makes pasta and textiles near the historic town of Mardin, had to lay off 350 of his workers. Of 66 plants employing 7,000 people that once operated at the industrial park near the Syrian border where Karaboga works, all but 10 have been shuttered. "We are doing what we can," says Behcet, 36, who lives in two rooms in a local church with his wife and four children. He can't afford the uniform that his nine-year-old girl, Nazan, needs to go to school. "She asks every day," he says.

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