Justice and Development Party at the Helm: Resurgence of Islam or Restitution of Right of Center Predominant Party

Justice and Development Party at the Helm: Resurgence of Islam or Restitution of Right of Center Predominant Party? by Ersin Kalaycıoğlu Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey Introduction General elections of July 22, 2007 witnessed a very rare occasion in Turkish politics. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which had been in government since the November 3, 2002 elections managed to increase its votes from 34.3 percent in the 2002 general elections to 46.5 percent in the 2007 general elections, and again obtained an overwhelming majority in the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA). It had occurred twice before in Turkish politics: When the Democrat Party (DP) increased its vote share from 52.7 in the 1950 general elections to 57.6 percent in 1954 and again when the Republican People’s Party (CHP) received the plurality of the vote by 33.3 in the 1973 elections and then increased its vote share to 41.4 percent of the national vote in the 1977 elections. What is remarkable with the performance of the AKP is that it is not readily considered as one of the right or left‐of‐center parties. The leader and the front bench of the AKP started their political careers in the political Islamist National Outlook (Milli Görüş) movement, from which they had split when the political Islamist Virtue Party (FP) was banned from politics for its anti‐secular and thus anti‐Republican activities by the Constitutional Court of Turkey in 2001. The old guard of the FP established another of the Milli Görüş parties, the Felicity Party (SP), while the “Young Turks” within the former FP steered away from the Milli Görüş movement and established the AKP on August 14, 2001. With immaculate Islamist credentials, and what looked less like an ideological split from the Milli Görüş movement, for example in the style of German Social Democrats had experienced in the late 1950s, which culminated in the Bad Godesberg declarion, but more of an expediency and a slight change of style rather than substance, the AKP was formed as another conservative party with strong Islamist references. Therefore, the electoral victories of the AKP in the 2000s have been interpreted by the international media and some pundits as the demise of secularism and resurgence of Islam in Turkey. Now that the AKP has managed to increase its vote share and win the general elections again it is warranted to ask what this all means for Turkish politics. Has 46.5 percent of the Turkish electorate voted for political Islam in the July 22, 2007 elections? Is it religious credentials of the AKP or its leader and the front