Turkey is in turmoil as the country prepares to vote this Sunday in abruptly called general elections. Turmoil is not, yet, crisis. No tanks have rolled onto the streets despite the military’s declaration last April that it is “a party to the debate” on changing Turkey’s constitution. Nor have there been mass rallies demanding rule by Islamic law; Kemal Atatürk’s secular vision of Turkey’s postOttoman destiny has put down deep roots. The overwhelming majority of Turks, including devout Muslims, hold that religion belongs in the private sphere, and the governing AKP (Justice and Freedom Party) led by Recep Tayip Erdogan insists that, despite its Islamist leanings, it shares that view.

Thus it would be misleading to see the elections as a confrontation between the powerful military, the guardians of Atatürk’s revolution, and Islamists whose secret agenda is to overturn the separation of politics and religion that, with equal political and expanded legal rights for women, was his most enduring bequest. Yet the sense that this election will profoundly affect Turkey’s identity and define its relations with the Western and Muslim worlds is the campaign’s muffled, all-important and polarising theme.

After winning power in 2002, the AKP made strenuous efforts to reassure Western allies that its Islamist orientation, far from presenting a threat, reconciled Islam with democratic values. Except for Mr Erdogan’s failed attempt in 2004 to criminalise adultery, there was little to alarm, and much to praise, in its reforms. Economically, Turkey has prospered; inflation is sharply down, GDP has more than doubled and foreign investment has poured in. But suspicions about the AKP’s “real” agenda were never allayed.

There is dismay at the growing political weight of a conservative, nationalist, more religious and decidedly less pro-Western elite, dubbed “market fundamentalists” by the liberal intelligentsia. The weakness of the political Opposition has compounded fears of Islamist revivalism. Then, last April, Mr Erdogan overplayed his hand, proposing first himself, and then his Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, to succeed the secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer as President. In so doing, the Prime Minister not only flouted the convention that the President be above party politics; in the view of the military and of millions of demonstrators, an AKP presidency would remove the only constitutional safeguard, in Turkey’s unicameral legislative system, against abuse by the AKP of its parliamentary majority. To make matters worse, Mr Gul’s wife wears the headscarf, banned in public offices and universities . Thwarted in parliament by an opposition boycott, the AKP called early elections and, challenging the Establishment, announced changes to enable the President to be elected by popular vote.

The AKP will win, thanks to squabbles among the Opposition and a growing sense that Turkey, cold-shouldered by Europe and neglected by America, has no choice but to follow its West Asian destiny. But respect for the military, still Turkey’s most trusted institution, may deprive it of a two-thirds majority. Whatever the outcome, Mr Erdogan should seek a consensus on the presidency. And Europeans should wake up to the consequences, all unwelcome and some dangerous, of Turkey’s sense of betrayal by those who should be its stalwart friends and allies.