THE Turkish parliament yesterday voted against sending the Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, to the Supreme Court for investigation into the sources of her considerable personal wealth.
The Deputy Speaker, Mr Kamer Genc, said deputies voted 270 to 263 not to impeach Ms Ciller on allegations that her wealth was a result of illegal enrichment.
It was the third and final vote on corruption charges against her this week.
"Hence it is no longer necessary to send former prime minister Tansu Ciller to the Supreme Court," Mr Genc said, after announcing the result.
Impeachment of Ms Ciller would have been a serious blow to the government of Turkey's first Islamist prime minister, Mr Necmettin Erbakan.
His eight month old coalition is expected to emerge strengthened from the corruption tangle but the powerful military is likely to halt any slide from official secularism.
The conservative Ms Ciller comfortably won votes on Tuesday on two corruption charges relating to the sale of the stateowned car maker TOFAS and to the electricity company TEDAS during her time as prime minister between 1993 and, 1296. .
The opposition's best showing on Tuesday was 257 votes, well short of the 276 needed to impeach Ms Ciller.
Censure motions against Mr Erhakan, for consideration next week, are likewise expected to go the government's way.
The leader of the main opposition Motherland Party, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, said yesterday his party's censure motion would be debated on February 26th.
Motions by two left wing parties are to be combined and heard on February 25th.
Turkish MPs also voted yesterday against sending the former prime minister, Mr Yilmaz, to the Supreme Court on a charge relating to alleged corruption at the public Emlak Bank.
Ms Ciller, who is also foreign minister, dismissed opposition charges of rifts in her alliance with Mr Erbakan.
"This government will continue," she told a meeting of her True Path Party before the vote.
Stocks in Istanbul ended the day 1.13 per cent higher, on hopes that Ms Ciller would not be impeached in the final vote. The market closed before the result was announced.
Many MPs from Mr Erbakan's Welfare Party, who had backed accusations of graft against Ms Ciller, when they were in opposition last year, voted for her this time, to protect coalition unity.
Mr Erbakan's administration has begun to show cracks recently despite successful joint efforts on privatisation. Several True Path ministers have criticised plans by Mr Erbakan to increase the profile of Islam in public life.
The proposals are mild, but they have sparked wide public debate on Turkey's 70 year old secularist system and rumours of military intervention against the Islamists.
"Let's not politicise secularism and religion," Ms Ciller said in a call for calm. "We are not going to become a world power by spending our time asking ourselves if we are going to become another Algeria," she said.
About 60,000 people have been killed in Algerian violence since early 1992, when authorities cancelled a general election in which radical Islamists had taken a commanding lead.
The Sabah daily said on Tuesday that the head of Turkey's armed forces, Gen Ismail Hakki Karadayi, would warn Mr Erbakan not to abandon secularism when they talk at a security meeting next week.
"The army is" not happy," a commentator and military expert, Mr Mehmet Ali Birand, said, but Mr Erbakan would assure the generals that he has no intention of turning Turkey, a member of NATO, into an Islamic state, he said.
"It [the meeting] will give us a few months breathing space and then we will start over again," Mr Birand said.