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Revision as of 06:44, 22 July 2004
The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi or AKP) is a Turkish political party.
It portrays itself as a moderate centre-right party with Islamic roots, with the aim of becoming Turkey's answer to Germany's CDU. Opponents, however, worry that it could be a front for Islamists, or at least anti-secularists – Turkey is officially secular. It won a landslide victory in the 2002 general elections, and its leader, former Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is currently the Prime Minister of Turkey.
The Party emerged from the embers of the staunchly Islamist Welfare Party, which briefly led a coalition government in Turkey in 1996. In 2000 the Welfare Party was broken up by the military for allegedly threatening the secular nature of the Turkish Republic. A group of moderate reformists known as the Yenilikciler or renewalists formed the party on 14 August, 2001, in an attempt to ground Islamist politics in a secular democratic framework. The more conservatively Islamist elements of the Welfare Party formed the Felicity Party, which gained only 2% of the vote in 2002's General Election.
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 centre-right of the political spectrum, it has implemented strong social programmes for the urban and rural poor, particularly at municipal level. In this it perhaps seeks to emulate, in Islamic form, the Christian Social tradition of Northwestern Europe.
After some initial stumbling, notably when Erdogan was temporarily blocked from taking up the Prime Ministership, the AKP has found its feet, surviving the crisis over the Iraq War despite a massive back bench rebellion in parliament which prevented the government allowing the United States of America to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish soil. The government has greatly increased Turkish chances of being given a date for membership of the European Union, notably by giving strong support to the ultimately doomed Annan Plan aimed at resolving the Cyprus conflict. It has been buoyed by rapid economic growth and an end to Turkey's three decade long period of hyperinflation - inflation had fallen to 8.8% by June 2004.
In the local elections of 2004, the AKP won an unprecedented 44% of the vote, making inroads agains the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against Kurdish nationalists in the South East of Turkey.
One potential crisis looming on the horizon is that the EU must make a decision on whether or not to give Turkey a target date for accession by October 2004. If the EU raises its hand against Turkey, many fear that the AKP could again split between its reformist and traditionalist elements, heralding another period of instability in Turkish politics.