Reports of the political demise of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests were exaggerated. In fact, the findings of a think tank headed by an AKP deputy hint that not only is the ruling party alive and well, it may actually be undergoing a “course correction.” This correction, in turn, could have profound implications for next year’s local and presidential elections in Turkey.
Headed by Idris Bal, a UK-trained professor of international relations and AKP deputy for Kutahya province, the Eurasia Global Research Center’s (AGAM) findings criticize the government’s heavy-handed response to the protests. Instead of pointing fingers at Erdogan, however, the AGAM report (aptly given the objective-sounding title, “Analysis of the Taksim Events”) blames the prime minister’s advisers for “misinforming” their boss and unnecessarily forcing him to takes sides in the Gezi protests. It was Erdogan’s poorly informed subordinates, not Erdogan himself, who turned a small sit-in at Gezi Park into a nationwide uprising. It was a “strategic mistake,” reads the report, to blow out of proportion a matter that should have been for Istanbul residents, the district municipality of Beyoglu, and the metropolitan municipality of Istanbul to decide.
