ANKARA, July 16: Turkish premier Bulent Ecevit bowed to pressure from government partners on Tuesday and agreed to call early polls in November in the hope of ending turmoil that has shaken markets and raised concern among NATO allies.

Ecevit, however, appeared determined to keep his rocky three-party government in power until the polls, which promise to be crucial to Turkey’s future direction. Parties could vanish from parliament, new ones may rise to prominence.

The ailing Ecevit faces an exodus from his party of deputies now trying to build a new centrist front to fight the polls.

Their new “Troika” party is seen by markets as the great hope to keep a multi-billion dollar IMF-backed pact on track.

“The three leaders have reached agreement on holding an early general election on November 3, 2002,” the leaders said in a short statement following an hour-long meeting.

Turks, ravaged by the unemployment and poverty of the worst recession since 1945, are like markets and foreign allies seeking a clear outcome from polls in a country haunted by decades of indecisive government.

Markets look to a government to implement the IMF pact sealed after two crushing crises in less than two years.

Current government allies have pledged to enforce the pact but doubts linger. Minds may now be distracted by campaigning.

Only two weeks ago, the same three coalition leaders moved against speculation the government was riven and weakened by Ecevit’s illnesses and declared they would see the government through to 2004 — when parliament’s five-year term expires.

Then Devlet Bahceli, head of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) which is in the coalition, said the government was seen as disunited and elections had to be held in November.

“The market really has to learn and say, look, we are four years down the line...Are we returning to the period of the 1990s when we had a new government every year or are we on the point of a new era?” asked Sheetal Radia, analyst at Standard and Poors MMS in London.—Reuters