Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP^† in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament. Its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is Prime Minister, while fellow former party member and PM Abdullah Gül is President.

Founded in 2001 by members of a number of existing parties, the party won a landslide victory in the 2002 election, winning over two-thirds of parliamentary seats. Abdullah Gül became Prime Minister, but a constitutional amendment in 2003 allowed Erdogan to take his place. In early general elections in 2007, the AKP increased its share of the vote to 47%; its number of seats fell to 341, but Erdogan was returned as PM, while Gül was elected President. In the general elections held on June 12, 2011, the AKP further increased its share of the popular vote to 49.9% and secured 327 parliamentary seats to form a third-consecutive majority government.

The AK Party portrays itself as a liberal conservative party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union.^[3] In 2005, the AK Party was granted observer membership in the European People's Party.

Formation

The AK Party was established by a wide range of politicians of various political parties and a number of new politicians. The core of the party was formed from the reformist faction (Turkish: yenilikçiler) of the Islamist Virtue Party, including people such as Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç. A second founding group consisted of members of the social conservative Motherland Party who had been close to Turgut Özal, such as Cemil Çiçek and Abdülkadir Aksu. Some members of the Turkish Democratic Party, such as Hüseyin Çelik and Köksal Toptan, joined the AKP. Some members, such as Kürşad Tüzmen, had nationalist backgrounds while representatives of the nascent 'Muslim left' current were largely excluded.^[4] In addition a large number of people joined a political party for the first time, such as Ali Babacan, Selma Aliye Kavaf, Egemen Bağış and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. All of these people joined Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to found the new party.

History

2002 general elections

The AK party won a sweeping victory in the 2002 elections, which saw every party previously represented in the Grand National Assembly ejected from the chamber. In the process, it won a two-thirds majority of seats, becoming the first Turkish party in 11 years to win an outright majority. Erdoğan normally would have become prime minister, but was banned from holding any political office after a 1994 incident in which he read a poem deemed pro-Islamist by judges. As a result, Gül became prime minister. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion where over a hundred AK Party MPs joined those of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in parliament to prevent the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory. Later, Erdoğan's ban was abolished with the help of the CHP and Erdoğan became prime minister by being selected to parliament after a by-election in Siirt.

The AK Party has undertaken structural reforms, and during its rule Turkey has seen rapid growth and an end to its three decade long period of hyperinflation. Inflation had fallen to 8.8% by 2004.

Influential business publications such as The Economist consider the AK Party's government the most successful in Turkey in decades.^[5]

2004 local elections

In the local elections of 2004, the AK Party won 42% of the votes, making inroads against the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against the Social Democratic People's Party, which is supported by some Kurds in the South-East of Turkey.

In January 2005, the AK Party 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.

2007 elections

On April 14, 2007, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Ankara to protest the possible candidacy of Erdoğan in the 2007 presidential election, afraid that if elected as President, he would alter the secular nature of the Turkish state.^[6] Erdoğan announced on April 24, 2007 that the party had decided to nominate Abdullah Gül as the AK Party candidate in the presidential election.^[7] The protests continued over the next several weeks, with over one million reported at an April 29 rally in Istanbul,^[8][9] tens of thousands reported at separate protests on May 4 in Manisa and Çanakkale,^[10] and one million in İzmir on May 13.^[11]

Early parliamentary elections were called after the failure of the parties in parliament to agree on the next Turkish president. The opposition parties boycotted the parliamentary vote and deadlocked the election process. At the same time, Erdoğan claimed the failure to elect a president was a failure of the Turkish political system and proposed to modify the constitution.

The AK Party achieved victory in the rescheduled July 22, 2007 elections with 46.6% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats. Although the AK Party 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, they retained a comfortable ruling majority.^[3] "Don't Stop, Keep Going On!" was the slogan of the Justice and Development Party in the general elections of 2007.

Territorially, the elections of 2007 saw a major advance for the AK Party, with the party outpolling the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party in traditional Kurdish strongholds such as Van and Mardin, as well as outpolling the secular-left CHP in traditionally secular areas such as Antalya and Artvin. Overall, the AK Party secured a plurality of votes in 68 of Turkey's 81 provinces, with its strongest vote of 71% coming from Bingöl. Its weakest vote, a mere 12%, came from Tunceli, the only Turkish province where the Alevi form a majority.^[12] Abdullah Gül was elected President in late August with 339 votes in the third round – the first at which a simple majority is required – after deadlock in the first two rounds, in which a two-thirds majority is needed.

2007 constitutional referendum

After the opposition parties deadlocked the 2007 presidential election by boycotting the parliament, the ruling AK party proposed a constitutional reform package. The reform package was first vetoed by President Sezer. Then he applied to the Turkish constitutional court about the reform package, because the president is unable to veto amendments for the second time. The court did not find any problems in the package and 69% of the voters supported the constitutional changes. The reforms consisted of:

• electing the president by popular vote instead of by parliament;
• reducing the presidential term from seven years to five;
• allowing the president to stand for re-election for a second term;
• holding general elections every four years instead of five;
• reducing the quorum of lawmakers needed for parliamentary decisions from 367 to 184.

Closure cases

The Justice and Development Party has faced two closure cases in its history. Just 10 days before the national elections of 2002, Turkey's chief prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoğlu, asked the Turkish constitutional court to close the Justice and Development Party, which was leading in the opinion polls at that time. The chief prosecutor accused the Justice and Development Party of abusing the law and justice. He based his case on the fact that the party's leader had been banned from political life for reading a poem. The European Commission had already criticised Turkey for banning the party's leader from participating in elections.^[13] The court gave its verdict on 9 July 2009, rejecting the demand, and the case against the AK Party was terminated.^[14]

At an international press conference in Spain, the prime minister answered a question of a journalist by saying, "What if the headscarf is a symbol? Even if it were a political symbol, does that give [one the] right to ban it? Could you bring prohibitions to symbols?" These statements led to a joint proposal of the AK Party and the MHP for changing the constitution and the law to lift a ban on young women wearing headscarves at universities. This was one of the main reasons for Turkey's chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya, to ask the Constitutional Court to close the AK Party.^[15][16][17] A court-appointed rapporteur, Osman Can, advocated in his report that the Court should reject the closure case.^[18] Four members voted to cut public funding for the party, while the court's chairman voted against closing it down. The court rejected the demands of the prosecutor and did not ban the party.^[15] The European Union welcomed the decision by Turkey's highest court not to ban the ruling AK Party.^[19]

2009 local elections

The Turkish local elections of 2009 took place during the financial crisis of 2007–2010. After the success of the AK Party in the 2007 general elections, the party saw a decline in the local elections of 2009. In these elections the AK Party received 39% of the vote, 3% less than in the local elections of 2004. Still, the AK Party remained the dominating party in Turkey. The second party CHP received 23% of the vote and the third party MHP received 16% of the vote. The AK Party won in Turkey's largest cities: Ankara and Istanbul.^[20]

2010 constitutional referendum

Reforming the Constitution was one of the main pledges of the AK Party during the 2007 election campaign. The main opposition party CHP was not interested in altering the Constitution on a big scale, making it impossible to form a Constitutional Commission (Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu).^[21] The amendments lacked the two-thirds majority needed to instantly become law, but secured 336 votes in the 550 seat parliament - enough to put the proposals to a referendum. The reform package included a number of issues: such as the right of individuals to appeal to the highest court, the creation of the ombudsman’s office, the possibility to negotiate a nation-wide labour contract, positive exceptions for female citizens, the ability of civilian courts to convict members of the military, the right of civil servants to go on strike, a privacy law, and the structure of the Constitutional Court. The referendum was agreed by a majority of 58%.

Election results

General elections

Local elections

Referendums

Footnotes

References

External links

• Official website (English) (Turkish)
• AK Youth (Turkish)
• AK Party Political Academy (Turkish)
• AK Kanal (Turkish)
• AK İcraatlar (Turkish)