It is the first time in the 79-year-old history of the Turkish republic that a party with Islamist roots has secured a majority in parliament.

State-run television said the party had won 34.1 percent of the popular vote, giving them an overwhelming majority of 361 seats in the 550-member parliament, with 98 percent of ballots counted.

The former three-party coalition led by outgoing prime minister Bulent Ecevit was wiped off the political map, not winning a single parliamentary seat between them.

The ailing Ecevit conceded defeat as the unofficial returns showed his Democratic Left Party (DSP) and its two coalition partners were set to lose all their seats, having failed to secure the ten percent of votes required to enter parliament.

Due to the high barrier to entering parliament, some 45 percent of voting intentions will not be represented in the new-look assembly.

The DSP garnered only about one percent of the vote, a crushing blow to end the 77-year-old Ecevit's four-decade political career.

The AK, established only last year on the ashes of a banned Islamist movement, benefitted from a strong protest vote prompted by a severe economic crisis which has left about a million jobless.

The only other party to exceed the 10-percent national threshold was the staunchly secular Republican People's Party (CHP), Turkey's oldest political grouping, set up by the country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The CHP won 19.5 percent of the vote and 179 parliamentary seats, according to the unofficial results.

Ten independent candidates also won seats at Sunday's polls, state-run television reported.

The elections were closely watched by Turkey's NATO allies and the European Union, amid concern there could be fresh turmoil in a country whose powerful army forced an Islamist-led government from power just five years ago.

Political instability could deal a blow to Turkey's bid for EU membership and further hurt its already hard-hit economy.

It could also cause concern in Washington at a time when the United States may look to Ankara for support in a possible military operation against neighboring Iraq.

The AK was quick to say that it opposed any US military action against Tehran.

"We don't want there to be a war in Iraq," said party deputy president Abdullah Gul.

"We will do all that we can to avoid a war which Turkey would be dragged into," he said on TRT TV.

Turkey is the only mainly Muslim nation within NATO.

However the Islamist AK's maverick leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said his party would not deviate from Turkey's traditionally pro-Western path.

"The first thing we will do will be to accelerate the EU (membership) process," Erdogan told NTV news channel.

The AK's expected election victory is nonetheless a bittersweet one for Erdogan.

He was barred from standing in the election due to a 1998 conviction for Islamist sedition and cannot now be named prime minister. It remains unclear who the AK will nominate as its candidate to head the government.

The AK is viewed with suspicion by the secular establishment, which remains unconvinced that its members have broken with their Islamist roots.

"I hope it will do its work, keeping in mind the requirements of the secular and democratic system," the 77-year-old Ecevit said as he conceded defeat.

The election was brought forward from April 2004 because of political instability triggered by Ecevit's ill health and rifts in his coalition government over controversial reforms needed for Turkey's struggling EU bid.

Ordinary Turks are looking for a stable government that will rescue the country from its worst recession in years, while financial markets are hoping for an administration that will remain committed to a strict IMF-backed economic program.

The 15-nation EU, set to map out its eastward expansion at a key summit in December, has so far snubbed Ankara's bid to join, refusing even to set a date for the start of accession talks.

Turnout was put at 85 percent of the 41.4 million registered electors in Turkey, where voting is compulsory.

The electoral commission could take up to a week to officially confirm the results of Sunday's voting.

AK supporters took to the streets after as early election results were announced.

Dozens of people sang a nd danced outside the party headquarters in Ankara, waving white flags bearing the party symbol of an electric light bulb.

"All the parties who have governed Turkey up till now have exploited us," said jubilant bank manager Cengiz Akgun, 49. "I have full confidence in Erdogan and his party".

The charismatic Erdogan himself was mobbed by party faithful as he flew in to the capital from Istanbul, where he once served as mayor.

He told reporters that the fight "against corruption and poverty" would be the main objective for the government his party would form.

However there were no signs of jubilation on the streets of Ankara away from the AK party headquarters.

SPACE.WIRE