How popular is AKP?

Submitted by J. Keen Holland (United States), Aug 5, 2003 at 16:17

As I recall press accounts of the election in Turkey last year, an electoral scheme designed to magnify the strength of the leading party, which had been put in place by secularists hoping to marginalize the religious parties, backfired on its designers and produced about 65% of the legislative seats for the AKP alliance when its vote was a bit under 40%.

While this gives AKP a great deal of freedom to maneuver during the term of this parliament, what are the party's prospects for future elections?

How far is the Turkish public willing to go in the direction of Islamicizing the government?

For example, it is one thing to permit female civil servants to be veiled at work if they choose to do so (a hot issue in recent years) and quite another to ban women from work outside the home. I look forward to reading more about this here.

Regarding the change in the legal status of the armed forces vis-a-vis politics, I would doubt that a mere change on paper will have much impact. The Greek army carried out coups in Greece (1967) and Cyprus (1974) based more on their ability to do so to defend their view of the national interest than on any legal niceties.

Would we expect the Turkish military, with their long history of political activity, to do less? Absent a good excuse for a massive purge (itself a cure which might be more dangerous than the disease), it may take a decade or so to promote a new generation of officers chosen for their deference to civil authority.

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