The Age of Erdogan: Why Turkey Voted AKP
Posted by Kathryn Schmidt 17 hours ago
The results of Turkey’s recent parliamentary election were anything but ordinary. Within the past five months, the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party has successfully recovered from this summer’s inconclusive election in which the party lost its majority standing. Since June, the AKP has surprisingly mobilized an additional 5 million supporters, thereby gaining the 59 representatives in the Grand National Assembly required for a majority total of 319 seats. Even senior AKP leaders were stunned by the speed with which the party rebounded from its weakened position; in-party fighting had ensued after the AKP’s loss of its parliamentary majority and as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the party’s founder and longtime driving force, dismissed talks of constructing a coalition and instead insisted upon holding this second election. However, the doubts surrounding the level of public support for Erdogan and the AKP have been emphatically dispelled: the Islamist party has successfully re-established itself as the dominant force in Turkish politics for at least four more years.
More:The Age of Erdogan: Why Turkey Voted AKP | McGill International Review
