The AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) or Justice and Development Party is a center-right Islamist political party founded in 2001 and the party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It emerged from the reformist wing of the banned Islamic Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi) and is comprised of a coalition of politicians, many of whom were supporters of Turgut Özal and Neҫmettin Erbakan’s Refah Parti (Welfare Party) in the 1980s and 1990s. The AKP swept elections in 2002, and have performed strongly in all elections since. Though detractors claim that they are an Islamist party, AKP representatives reject this framework and represent themselves as conservative democrats. Their representation of Islam is unique among Islamist parties elsewhere in the region in that they forgo long beards and are comfortable with the language of pluralist democracy and neoliberalism.
In 2002, the AKP was buoyed by the failure of secular government officials to respond efficiently to a massive earthquake that devastated a region to the east of Istanbul in 1999. Inquiries indicated that corruption and shoddy construction had worsened the damage, leading to widespread public anger with secularist leaders and laying the groundwork for an acceptance of the AKP. AKP politician and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented the AKP as an incorruptible, moral alternative to business as usual; “ak” is the Turkish word for purity, and Erdoğan and others allude to the “pure” morals of the AKP.
A political scandal in December 2013 challenged this perception. Dozens were detained in an investigation into money laundering, bribery, and other issues that have implicated some of Turkey’s most prominent politicians and business leaders. AKP members and outside analysts suspect that Gülenists within the government—followers of powerful moderate Islamist leader Fethullah Gülen—were behind the investigation.
Sources:
Taner Akcam, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide (London: Zed Books, 2004).
Vali Nasr, Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean For Our World (New York: Free Press, 2009).
Ömer Taşpınar, “Islamist Politics in Turkey: The New Model?” The Brookings Institution, April 2012, accessed November 4, 2013.
Piotr Zalewski, “Turkey’s House of Cards Moment: Arrests and Scandal Signal a Crisis for Erdogan,” TIME, December 19, 2013, accessed January 7, 2014.