Turkey to form new government

People power

"Enough, the power is with the people," was Menderes' election slogan - revived by Erdogan for his own campaign.

Opponents "were going to set up kangaroo courts, as they did for Menderes. They wanted to do the same thing to us that they did to Menderes," Erdogan said at a rally this month, referring to a graft probe that broke late last year and implicated his inner circle. He said it was a coup plot aimed at toppling him.

There have been other moments when the spirit of Menderes might have loomed at Erdogan's shoulder. Foremost was a standoff with the military in 2007 when the army issued a memorandum on its website expressing disapproval at plans to make Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Erdogan, the country's president.

With the suggestion of a coup hanging in the air, government met and decided to stand firm, issuing a statement dismissing the General Staff's intervention. The 'coup by memorandum' against Erdogan failed in a huge symbolic victory over the army.

Erdogan has said that he, at age 7, and his father, a poor sea captain, cried when Menderes was hanged and that it served as the catalyst for his own political awakening.

Erdogan himself was jailed for four months for reciting a poem deemed anti-secular in 1997 when he was mayor of Istanbul.

"Erdogan saw himself as part of an anti-establishment revolt, a kid from a tough waterfront area who made it into political power," said William Hale, professor emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London.

Erdogan has overseen a tripling in the size of the economy, promised to end a 30-year war with Kurdish militants that has killed 40,000 people and forced generals out of the political sphere, rendering the chances of another coup remote.

Ataturk remains Turkey's official national hero, his portrait adorning all public buildings and many homes.

But his secularist legacy is fading 75 years after his death. Erdogan vigorously promotes conservative values, like curbs on alcohol sales and women's rights in abortion.

"Erdogan enjoys popular support in a way Ataturk never did, since he did not stand in an election," said Eissenstat. "Ataturk founded a state. Erdogan revolutionized it."