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The main talk of the town in Ankara these days is the unrest brewing within Turkey’s unrivaled political powerhouse, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and its potential impact on the country’s future. Let’s spell it out immediately that the emerging dissent is unlikely to split the party or lead to the creation of a new party by in-house critics unhappy with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s overbearing style.
This may sound confusing, given the recent stir triggered by former Deputy Prime Minister and parliamentary Speaker Bulent Arinc, one of the AKP’s top three heavyweights ever since the party’s creation in 2001 until the June elections last year. Why did Arinc rebel? To answer this question, a few reminders are in order.
