Meral Aksener, leader of the IYI Party, parliament’s fourth-biggest, said it would take “an even more concrete step” and file a criminal complaint against both the Swedish government and perpetrators of the “vile act”.

“Erdogan and his fellows want to use these foreign policy issues in general for domestic political gains,” she told party members on Wednesday.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also condemned the incidents in Sweden and said they would serve Erdogan’s re-election campaign.

The Koran was set alight on Saturday by a far-right Danish politician, while earlier a pro-Kurdish group strung up the Erdogan effigy. Both incidents were criticised by Swedish government officials.

But Erdogan said this week that Sweden could no longer expect Turkey’s support for its NATO bid, and Ankara cancelled a planned trilateral meeting. Finland said the sides need a “time out” for a few weeks until “the dust has settled”.

WAITING GAME

All 30 NATO member states must approve newcomers.

To address Turkey’s concerns, Sweden and Finland pledged last summer to take a harder line against what Ankara labels as mainly Kurdish “terrorists” – allegedly linked to PKK separatist militants in Turkey’s southeast – living there.

Washington, Stockholm and Helsinki had hoped Ankara would ratify the NATO bids before Turkey’s election. But that prospect faded even before the Stockholm protests, given Erdogan’s calls for dozens of extraditions and deportations that Swedish law would not allow.

Ozer Sencar, chairman of pollster Metropoll, said that amplifying foreign policy and security issues ahead of elections allows Erdogan to consolidate his voter base.

He “creates a perception of a ‘strong leader’ inside Turkey,” he said. “If you can come up with a security problem, then people rally behind the strong leader.”

Both Swedish and Finnish officials have acknowledged that Turkey’s reaction to their membership bids – and security concerns – has had domestic political dimensions.

“Of course they feel the pressure from the upcoming elections in mid-May and because of that the discussion understandably has become heated in many ways in Turkey,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told Reuters.

He said Turkey is likely to ratify the Nordic countries’ membership after the May presidential and parliamentary elections, and before a NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12.

But a Western diplomat who requested anonymity said the issue was “completely taken over by election politics” and that ratification could come as late as October, when the Turkish parliament reconvenes after the summer.

While Erdogan’s government backs the Nordics’ NATO bid with conditions, his political opponents had been more supportive – before the Stockholm incidents.

ECONOMY TRUMPS FOREIGN POLICY?

His AK Party, now the biggest, is likely to remain a powerful force in parliament after the elections, but opinion polls show Erdogan trailing some potential presidential challengers including CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara.

Erdogan has sought to ease Turks’ economic woes by delivering a large hike to the minimum wage this year and reducing the age limit for retirement for millions, among other fiscal stimulus measures.

But analysts say the economy will likely remain the determining factor for most voters rather than foreign policy.

Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies and a former diplomat, noted that NATO enlargement is a non-partisan issue.

“This time the ruling and opposition parties have the same position on the (NATO Nordics) matter, so it does not seem to be a topic for domestic politics,” he said.