AKP pursues scorched-earth tactics against Gulenists
Turkish prosecutors have dropped a corruption probe against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son and businessmen close to the government, marking the latest move in the government’s all-out war against the Gulen community.
The Turkish government responded to the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 bribery and corruption investigations, which targeted ministers’ relatives and crony businessmen, by declaring them “coup attempts” and launching an all-out war on the Gulen movement, which it singled out as the mastermind of the alleged plot.
Since then, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership, has left behind the critical phases of this “civil war” against its former ally and de facto coalition partner, turning the balance decisively in its favor. The government passed its key resilience test in the March 30 local elections, losing less support than expected and retaining the two “strategic municipalities” of Istanbul and Ankara.
The timing of the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 probes aimed to deal the AKP a heavy blow in the March 30 polls and mark the beginning of the end for the party’s electoral victories. The outcome, however, showed the operation’s architects failed to achieve their goal.
The allegations and evidence of large-scale corruption and bribery, coupled with a slew of incriminating wiretaps that hit the Internet almost daily ahead of the polls, failed to unravel the tight ranks of the Sunni conservative base surrounding Erdogan.
