July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government appears headed toward an easy victory in the July 22 election, strengthening his hand in his struggle with the army over who rules Turkey.

In his closing campaign speeches and millions of phone messages, Erdogan is telling Turks that 21 straight quarters of economic growth mean they've never had it so good. Voters are buying the pitch: A Konda poll published yesterday gave Erdogan's Justice and Development Party almost 48 percent of the vote. That would be the biggest share since Suleyman Demirel's Justice Party won with 53 percent in 1965.

``A landslide victory for Justice would show that Turks are on Erdogan's side in the stand-off with the military,'' said Ali Tekin, a professor of politics at Bilkent University in Ankara. ``The army would see the election result as a fundamental shift in Turkey. It would spell trouble.''

The polls now show Justice has at least twice the support of its nearest rival. Tensions with the army might be revived if Erdogan is able to woo the Nationalist Action Party, running third in the polls, and win over enough lawmakers to back a candidate for president who isn't the staunchly secular figure the army is seeking.

Erdogan, 53, called the election after an April confrontation with the military over naming the next president. His party drew 34 percent of the vote in 2002.

Gul's Past

In April, military commanders objected to Erdogan's choice of his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, as president because of his past ties to an Islamist political movement forced out of office under military pressure. The April tensions included street protests by secularists and raised fears of a fifth coup in the country's modern political history.

The general election will ``reinforce democracy,'' Erdogan said on May 2, the week after army chief Yasar Buyukanit issued a statement on his Web site warning the government against electing Gul as president. Secular critics have accused Erdogan of polarizing the country along religious lines.

Speaking as she campaigned in the densely populated Istanbul suburb of Umraniye today, Justice candidate Nursuna Memecan said that if the party was trying to create an ``oppressive regime,'' as opponents argued, it wouldn't be able to implement EU rules and regulations.

Memecan, 49, who wasn't wearing an Islamic-style headscarf, focused her campaigning on owners of small businesses, who said Justice provided a good investment climate and efficient municipal services.

Opposition Parties

Erdogan's sole opposition in the last parliament, the secularist Republican People's Party led by Deniz Baykal, may be joined by the Nationalists this time.

According to the Konda poll, the nationalist party has 14 percent support, surpassing the 10 percent required for a party to win seats. The entry of a third party would trim the number of Justice and Development lawmakers, while maintaining the party's majority.

Party leaders began winding up their appeals to voters today. Erdogan campaigned in his birthplace of Rize in Turkey's northeast, while Baykal headed for the western industrial region of Gebze, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) from Istanbul. Nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli was addressing voters in Samsun on the Black Sea coast.

Secular Yet Conservative

Bahceli has signaled that his party will support a presidential candidate put forward by Erdogan. ``It's going to be much easier for Justice to agree with them on a candidate for president rather than the Republicans,'' said Ozer Sencar, chief of Ankara-based research company MetroPoll, in a telephone interview. ``The Nationalists are secular but they're also conservative.''

Gul remains the government's preferred candidate for the presidency, the Milliyet newspaper today cited Erdogan as saying in an interview. Gul is ``fully qualified'' for the post, the prime minister said.

Some foreign investors, though, argue that the rise in popularity for the Nationalists may temper Erdogan's ambitions to elect a candidate who would seek to dilute the army's secular traditions.

`Very Stable'

``A three-party parliament will mean very stable government and will probably be unthreatening to Turkey's secular establishment,'' Serhan Cevik, an emerging markets analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co. International in London, said in a telephone interview.

Yesterday Turkish stocks posted the biggest gain this year, lifting the country's main index to a record, on bets this weekend's elections will result in a single-party government that will maintain economic growth. The ISE National 100 Index rallied 4.3 percent in Istanbul. It fell 0.7 percent today.

In campaign posters along Turkish streets and highways, Erdogan asks voters to stay the course and reminds them of economic gains under his government.

Erdogan has dropped harsh criticism of the military in favor of a more conciliatory tone during campaigning. The prime minister had accused the secular establishment of firing a ``bullet at democracy'' by blocking Gul's selection.

Mosque and State

Justice appeals to the majority of Turks, whom surveys indicate favor a looser form of secularism than the army espouses. Meanwhile the army suspects that Justice wants to undercut the separation of mosque and state, citing the party's attempts to criminalize adultery and move bars selling alcohol from city centers.

Erdogan says that while Justice is conservative and Muslim, it bases its policies on democracy and economic development rather than ideology.

Many Turks disagree. More than a million people poured onto Turkey's streets in April and May to protest Erdogan's efforts to claim the presidency. Retired military officers and the Ataturk Thought Association, a group that defends the secular principles laid down by Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, organized the demonstrations.

Erdogan and Gul were members of an Islamist party outlawed by the Constitutional Court in 1998 for threatening Turkey's secular form of government. A year later, Erdogan spent five months in jail for publicly reciting an Islamic poem that compared mosques to barracks and minarets to bayonets.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Bentley in Ankara at mbentley3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 20, 2007 12:02 EDT