Monday July 8 4:54 PM EDT Turkish Legislators OK Islamist-Led Coalition ANKARA (Reuter) - Turkey's Islamist-led coalition government narrowly won a confidence vote in parliament on Monday, confirming power for Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of the Islam-based Welfare Party. Official results showed the coalition with the pro-Western True Path Party of Tansu Ciller won 278 votes, with 265 against in the 550-seat parliament. ``A new era has begun in Turkey,'' a smiling Erbakan told parliament after the result. ``We will work day and night with the spirit of worship.'' The result approved him as the first Islamist leader of Turkey, a secular state with an overwhelmingly Moslem population. A handful of True Path dissidents stayed away from the vote in protest, while several others voted No. However, a full-scale rebellion failed to materialise. General elections late last year favoured Erbakan but failed to produce a definite winner. A secularist coalition between Ciller and rival conservative Mesut Yilmaz fell in June after three months of bickering. Modern Turkey pushed Islam to the sidelines of politics when it was founded in 1923 on the ashes of the religion-based Ottoman Empire. But support for Welfare has leaped in recent years on the back of discontent at the economy and political infighting. The confidence vote, an open ballot, was stalled when former foreign minister Emre Gonensay was punched by an unidentified deputy of his True Path Party after voting against Erbakan. ``Under this roof every MP is free to vote whichever way he wants,'' an angry parliament speaker Mustafa Kalemli told deputies. ``If you do this again I will be forced to introduce the rule book.'' Voting resumed after a seven-minute delay. The coalition, which has 287 deputies, needed backing from a majority of those present to get approval. The seven members of a far-right party gave the government crucial backing. Erbakan says he will chart a middle way between East and West in foreign policy, uphold democracy and pursue a free-market economic programme. NATO-member Turkey has been without a stable government since Ciller resigned as premier more than nine months ago. It is struggling with high inflation, a Kurdish rebel insurgency and disputes with many of its neighbors. Turkey's financial markets and business community, previously wary of the Islamists, were hoping for Welfare to stay in office just for the sake of some kind of stability. The Istanbul stock market index closed 1.37 percent higher at a record high of 73,531.30 shortly after the vote was completed. Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED]
