Turkish court hearing on Islamist ban due December 12

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -- Turkey's constitutional court will start hearing a case on whether to ban the Islamist Virtue party, the country's main opposition party, on December 12, the deputy chairman of the court said on Monday.

Banning of the Virtue party, if accompanied by expulsion of its deputies from parliament, could raise the prospect of by-elections that may destabilize a delicately balanced coalition government engaged in a rigorous IMF-backed anti-inflation program.

It could also strengthen the hand of European critics who demand broader political freedom if Turkey is to join the European Union.

The state prosecutor argues that the party is merely a continuation of the previously banned Islamist party Welfare and seeks to overthrow Turkey's secular order.

Turkey's powerful military, which has overthrown governments three times since 1960, nudged the country's only Islamist-led government from power in 1997 and mounted a crackdown on political Islam that led to the ban on Welfare the next year.

"The case against the Virtue party will start as of the morning of December 12," the deputy chairman of the court, Hasim Kilic, told Reuters. Last month Kilic said the court aimed to finish the case by the end of the year.

If Virtue is banned, its members are expected to split into traditionalists and a more modern wing that would seek to win mass support in the political center.

If its deputies are expelled from parliament, it would automatically trigger by-elections that could upset the balance of power in Bulent Ecevit's three-party coalition.

Markets fear such a development could ultimately lead to general elections which might disrupt the progress of a $4 billion disinflation package backed by the International Monetary Fund. Turkey is a third of the way through the three-year plan which aims to slash inflation to single digits by the end of 2002 from 44 percent in October.

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