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AKP stronger than ever following Turkish elections

Support for the Gulenists is in a downward spiral following the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) victory in the March 30 local elections.
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan leaves his seat to address members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara April 8, 2014. Turkey's first directly elected president will be a more powerful figure than the current largely ceremonial role, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Tuesday as saying, boosting expectations he may run for the post in August. Erdogan is barred by the rules of his ruling AK Party from standing for a fourth term as p

I had written in an earlier Al-Monitor article that the Erdogan government would be successful in the elections and the Gulenists would be the losers. Some analysts did not want to see this reality and failed miserably. But for analysts who understand Turkish society, the results are not surprising.

According to Gulenists and some other analysts who also write in these columns, the Dec. 17 graft probe and the tape-recording leaks that followed were enough to topple any political authority. The opposition really believed that it was going to be easy, because according to them the Justice and Development Party (AKP) had committed illegitimate actions that disregarded the law. They were further emboldened by believing that Gulenists had more ammunition in reserve against the AKP and, anyway, AKP’s prestige in the Western world was rapidly eroding. Many writers were confident that the United States was unhappy with the AKP government, therefore a redesign of Turkish politics was inevitable and that meant a Turkey without Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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