The AKP’s accountability crisis
The AKP’s inability to provide accounts of its spending from the previous year generates uproar in Turkey’s parliament, raising questions on the legitimacy of the 2014 budget.
Turkey’s ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) prefers to be referred as the AK Party rather than AKP.
This goes against the norm.
We do not say CH Party (CHP, the Republican People’s Party, the main opposition party) or MH Party (MHP, Nationalist Movement Party). Ak means white, pure, in Turkish, symbolizing mother’s milk, honesty, goodness, trustworthiness. All these were AKP’s promises. In the early 2000s, Turkey was recuperating from a devastating financial crisis and the coalition governments of the 1990s were notorious for large-scale corruption. AKP provided an honest newcomer profile with an Islamic touch. Several rumors of corruption broke even in the early years of AKP. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family’s wealth were also an unpleasant subtitle of Wikileaks. When asked about his newly accumulated personal and family wealth, Erdogan’s usual answer has been, "Do not be jealous: Work hard and you can be successful, too."
On Dec. 10, budget talks started in the Turkish Parliament. Erdogan’s hourlong speech had little to say about government spending. His speech was disturbed several times by angry voices from the opposition. The opposition was in unison about the lack of auditors’ reports.
