Felicity Party (Turkey)
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The Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) is a Turkish political party of strongly Islamist views, often seen as the main voice of sensitive muslims in Turkey.
It was founded on 20 July 2001 by the members of the Virtue Party.
Although an Islamist party, its policy platform covers the whole span of political issues in Turkey.
The Felicity Party has not been particularly successful electorally, polling just 2.5% of the vote in the 3 November 2002 general elections, thereby failing to pass the 10% threshold necessary to gain representation in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. It was more slightly more successful in the local elections of 29 March 2004, winning 4.1% of the vote and a number of mayoralties, although none of any particular significance.
The Felicity Party's vote has been weakened by the success of the moderately Islamic Justice and Development Party government, although it has repeatedly condemned the Turkish government's desire to join the European Union, military ties with Israel and the United States. It has argued that Turkey must adapt its military and foreign policy stance to meet what it argues are increasing threats coming from the West to all Muslim countries.
The Felicity Party was founded by the support of veteran politician Necmettin Erbakan, and its policy platform is based strongly around his ideas and philosophy. It remains an important party, despite its relative electoral weakness, due to its strong grassroots organizational in comparison with other political parties in Turkey.
The Felicity Party works both as a political party and an enormous social organization. It has party branches in nearly every discrict, small town and city in the country. In the past it has organized demonstrations on a wide range of issues, often involving tens or hundreds of thousands of participants. Thousands of protesters joined SP organized demonstrations against the 2004 attack on Fallujah, the occupation of Palestine and recently against the depictions of the Prophet Muhammed in newspapers around the world (the latter protest in Istanbul reportedly attracted 1.5 million people).[citation needed]
