Oratorical skills of popular politician led to ban from public office

Turkey's new leader does not drink or smoke and prays regularly. But in staunchly secular Turkey, all three signs of Muslim piety are cause for alarm. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) secured a landslide victory in Sunday elections. All eyes are now on the man who says he is no Islamist.

Ironically, the same oratory skills that make him Turkey''s most popular politician also mean he cannot be Prime Minister. Mr Erdogan is banned from public office because of a conviction he received for reciting a fervent poem at a rally, seen by secularist courts to incite religious hatred.

The 48-year-old man of the people has since sought to distance himself from the image of a religious firebrand and says he has changed. He calls himself a moderate conservative and insists he is pro-Western. But Turkey's secularist establishment and powerful top brass are still suspicious.

Mr Erdogan has suffered at the hands of Turkey's establishment. Early in his career, he was forced to quit a municipal job because he refused to shave his moustache, a sign of piety. He had to send his daughters to be educated abroad because a ban on wearing Islamic-style headscarves meant they could not attend local universities. But Mr Erdogan insists he is not interested in introducing Islamic laws.

The former football player has come a long way from his working-class origins. As a teenager, he sold lemonade and sesame buns on the streets of Istanbul's rougher districts to earn extra cash.

His working-class credentials are key to his appeal. "I am the voice of the silent majority. I speak for those who can't" was his campaign cry.

He attended an Islamic school, before obtaining a degree in management from Istanbul's Marmara University - and playing professional football. It was during this time that he was scouted by Necmettin Erbakan, the father of Turkey's political Islamic movement, who was impressed by the young man's knack for public speech and persuasion.

Mr Erdogan became actively involved in Mr Erbakan's National Salvation Party, a hardline anti-Western Islamist party later banned for sedition, and its successors. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming Istanbul mayor in 1994. Even his critics have grudging praise for him – during his tenure Istanbul became a cleaner city and public transport improved greatly.

That term was cut short when he was jailed for reading a poem in which he called the "mosques our barracks" and "the believers our soldiers". The poem was seen by courts as a rallying cry for the unacceptable face of militant Islam.

Tens of thousands of people escorted him to a prison in western Turkey. For the duration of his four-month jail term, supporters protested silently in support of him. They hung Erdogan posters in their shops and drove cars emblazoned with banners that read "This Love Affair Won't End".