What next for Turkey’s AKP after Davutoglu's exit?

In Turkey, prime ministers normally lose their job when they lose an election, or they lose the majority of the seats in the parliament due to a break down in their party. Turkey’s current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had none of those problems. He had won a sweeping election victory just six months ago and his party is more intact than ever. Yet, still he had to give a farewell speech on May 5. He announced that there will be a surprise snap party congress in 17 days to chose the new party leader, but he himself will not run. “This is not my decision,” he said, “but a necessity.”

The whole of Turkey knows what the necessity is: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had nominated Davutoglu for the post of prime minister back in August 2014, had recently changed his mind. In the 20 months that has since passed, an ever-deepening rift emerged between the two men, and in Ankara rumors had spread the past few months that Davutoglu soon would be gone. Just four days before Davutoglu’s resignation, a new blog by an anonymous hard-core Erdoganist exposed all the details, as reported in Al-Monitor May 3. Accordingly, Davutoglu had “betrayed” Erdogan by collaborating with the Western powers and their “agents” that conspire against “the CHIEF.”