The corruption charges against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will occupy center stage in the upcoming municipal elections scheduled for March 30. Rather than focusing on his party’s accomplishments in municipal services over the past 10 years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has chosen to devote his energy to defending himself against widespread corruption charges. Yet, the origins of the AKP’s electoral success in the last 10 years lie in its record of municipal politics.
AKP municipalities have been consistent in delivering municipal services that focus on citizens and in improving much-needed infrastructure to modernize decaying cities. The AKP’s success at the municipal level reinforced the party’s claim that it can deliver more than simple Islamist ideology and govern cities in a competent and responsible manner. However, the AKP’s record in municipal politics has, from the beginning, been defined by two contradictory tendencies: large-scale infrastructure projects coupled with urban transformation plans on the one hand, and on the other a commitment to conservative values that goes back to the Ottoman social fabric of historical Turkish cities.
