ANKARA, 4 November — Turkey’s moderate and untested Islamist party, which has been viewed with suspicion both at home and abroad, was last night poised to win a landslide election victory which will allow it to form the next government, state-run television said.

The Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) was set to win 35 percent of the vote, and take 350 seats in 550-strong Parliament, handing a resounding defeat to the outgoing coalition of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, state-run TRT television reported. The AKP victory will mark a turning point in Turkish history.

The elections are being closely watched by Turkey’s NATO allies and the European Union, amid concern over any further turmoil in the country where the army has seized power three times since 1960. The United States is also monitoring the outcome, as it would expect Turkey’s help in any strike against Iraq, its southern neighbor. Moving to reassure Turkey’s anxious allies, party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a press conference his year-old party, standing in its first elections, was ready to “assume its duty” in running the country.

“Our party, which respects the lifestyles of all Turkish citizens and which is determined to accelerate Turkey’s EU membership process and to implement an economic program to speed up Turkey’s integration with the world, is ready to assume (its) duty,” he said.

Erdogan, however, is barred from standing for prime minister due to a 1998 conviction for incitement to hatred and a question mark hangs over who AKP would nominate as its candidate for head of government. AKP has refused to dump Erdogan as its chairman triggering an ongoing legal challenge to ban the party for defying the law — sparking fears of a constitutional crisis in the predominantly Muslim country.

The party is also viewed with suspicion by the secular establishment which remains unconvinced that AKP members have disavowed their hard-line Islamist views for a more mainstream stance. With just over 60 percent of the election ballots counted, the AKP was well ahead with 34.8 percent, followed by the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) with 19.2 percent. No other parties, including all three parties in Ecevit’s coalition government, looked likely to pass the election threshold of 10 percent needed to be represented in parliament.

An extrapolation of the results would see the Justice party winning a massive majority in the 550-seat Parliament. Even if the third-placed party, the center-right True Path Party (8.8 percent) manages to pass the 10 percent threshold, AKP should still be able to form a single party government.

The 41-million-strong electorate had appeared determined to unleash their wrath on Ecevit’s government for an 18-month economic crisis which saw Turkey tap the International Monetary Fund for a $16-billion bailout, and left a million unemployed. The strongest challenge to AKP came from the staunchly secular CHP, Turkey’s oldest party set up by the country’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The election had been originally due in April 2004, but was brought forward because of political instability triggered by Ecevit’s ill health and rifts in his coalition government over the controversial reforms needed for Turkey’s struggling EU membership bid.

Ecevit conceded defeat saying he was not surprised by the result of the poll. Ecevit’s center-left Democratic Left Party (DSP) garnered only about one percent of the vote, according to unofficial returns, TRT television reported. “I am not surprised even though I did not expect it to be so low,” the ailing 77-year-old ailing politician told reporters. His party came top of the polls in the 1999 election, winning 22 percent of the vote and taking 136 of the 550 seats in Parliament.

Asked whether he still had concerns that the expected election victor could pose a threat to Turkey’s secular system, Ecevit said: “I do have concerns.” “I hope it will do its work, keeping in mind the requirements of the secular and democratic system,” he said.