Turkey's Nov. 1 snap elections ended with a result that almost no one expected: a crushing, fourth consecutive victory for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has now been in power since 2002. The party won 49.4% of the vote, a major increase over the 40.9% it won in the previous elections, held June 7. The AKP has a comfortable majority in the parliament, holding 316 of the 550 seats. It now has enough power to form a government on its own, avoiding coalition scenarios for the next four years. The final seat count, however, fell short of giving the AKP the chance to amend the constitution on its own, which requires at least 330 seats.
How did the AKP pull off such a major victory, defying the predictions of almost all polling companies and political observers? I had predicted “some increase in the AKP votes,” but nothing this major. To understand what happened, one has to look at what changed in Turkey during the past five months, since the previous elections.
