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Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

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Template:Infobox Turkish Political Party

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AK Parti, or AKP[1]) describes itself as a centre-right, conservative Turkish political party.

While AKP represents itself as "moderate Muslim", opponents claim that it is an unofficially Islamist party operating within yet also attempting to subvert the framework of Turkey's rigorously secular constitution as etablished by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Brief background

The AKP claims to be a moderate, conservative, pro-Western party that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union.[2] The party's detractors accuse it of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda due to its deep roots in the religious community and the affiliations of some of its members with banned islamic parties. The AKP won 46.3% of the popular vote and was allocated 341 seats[3] in the rescheduled July 22nd, 2007 elections, a massive increase over the 34% of the vote it received in the 2002 general elections [4]. Its leader, former Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is currently the Prime Minister of Turkey.

History

The Justice and Development Party emerged from the remnants of former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's Welfare Party, which was forcibly dismantled four years after Erbakan's 1997 resignation as a result of the 1997 Turkish coup d'état. Erdoğan’s AKP altered the traditional focus of religiously-affiliated politics from concern over Turkey’s lack of Islamic characteristics to pushing for democratic and economic reforms in addition to stressing moral values through the communitarian-liberal consensus. Erdoğan also sought to temper his party’s Islamist image through building a broad-reaching coalition with members of center-right parties, and promising to further Turkey’s push to join the European Union. Erdoğan also positioned the AKP as the opposition party to the old, secular, state-driven development parties that had been proven ineffective by nearly bankrupting their countries.

A faction of moderate conservative members within the old Welfare Party, known as Yenilikçiler, or in English, Reformist formed the Justice and Development Party on August 14, 2001, in an attempt to ground moderate conservative politics in a secular democratic framework. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the AKP, stated that "AKP is not a political party with a religious axis" when the party was founded.

After some initial stumbling, notably when Erdoğan was temporarily blocked from taking up the Prime Ministership, the AKP has found its feet. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion by the opposition Republican People's Party in parliament, which prevented the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory. It also prevented sending Turkish troops to Iraq—a move the AKP supported.

The AKP has undertaken significant structural reforms and its policy achievements have seen rapid growth and an end to Turkey's three decade long period of hyperinflation—inflation had fallen to 8.8% by June 2004. Influential business publications, the Economist and the Financial Times, consider the AK Party's government the most successful in Turkey in decades.[5]

In the local elections of 2004, the AKP won an unprecedented 34% of the valid votes (and support of 27% of total electors), making inroads against the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against Social Democratic People's Party (Turkey) which is supported by some Kurds in the Southeast of Turkey.

In January 2005, the AKP was admitted as an observer member in the European People's Party (EPP), the conservative party of the EU. It is likely to become a full member of the EPP if Turkey is admitted to the EU. If the EU eventually rejects Turkey for membership, however, many fear that the AKP could again split between its reformist and conservative factions, heralding another period of instability in Turkish politics.

2007 General elections

See also: Turkish general election, 2007
Map illustrating the party's performance at the 2007 general election by constituency.

The AKP achieved a landslide victory in the rescheduled July 22 2007 elections with 46.76% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats. Although the AKP received significantly more votes in 2007 than in 2002, the number of parliamentary seats they controlled decreased due to the rules of the Turkish electoral system. However, the 341 seats they won still guaranteed them a comfortable ruling majority. [6]

Other information

The AKP draws particular support from the rural peasantry, and the children of rural peasants who have migrated to the major cities in millions. Despite placing itself on the right-wing of the political spectrum, it has implemented strong social programmes for the urban and rural poor, particularly at municipal level. Its supporters state that it seeks to emulate, in Islamic form, the Christian Democratic/Christian Social tradition of Central Europe, as exemplified by such parties as the CDU/CSU in Germany.

The party's logo is an incandescent light bulb, symbolizes light, electrical illumination and transparent government.[7]

References

  1. ^ The former of the two abbreviations is the official one, as documented in the third article of the party charter, while the latter is mostly preferred by its opponents; since the word "ak" in Turkish means "white, clean, or unblemished" and therefore gives a positive impression about the party.
  2. ^ http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/vote2007/article.php?enewsid=5
  3. ^ http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/vote2007/
  4. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/world/europe/22cnd-turkey.html?hp
  5. ^ http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9116747
  6. ^ http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/vote2007/
  7. ^ http://www.akparti.org

See also

Template:AKP Leaders

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