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The 'who loves Erdogan more' contest

In the AKP universe, even those who dare to criticize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feel the need to note that they love the great leader more than anybody else.
A supporter of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan waves a scarf with an image of the president during a ceremony to mark the 562nd anniversary of the conquest of the city by Ottoman Turks, in Istanbul, Turkey, May 30, 2015. REUTERS/Murad Sezer  - RTR4Y6BU

Akif Beki, one of the rare pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) columnists of Turkey’s top daily, Hurriyet, wrote an interesting op-ed June 30 titled “The plan to isolate Erdogan.” The piece was a critique of the die-hard pro-Recep Tayyip Erdogan “public intellectuals” who lashed out against every criticism against the great leader.

“If there is really a plan to isolate Erdogan as it is argued, and if there is really a demonic ‘mastermind’ behind this heinous plan,” Beki argued, “those who cling tightly to Erdogan these days, supposedly to protect him from the warnings of his own [ideological] neighborhood, must be working precisely for this goal. These low-life executioners who attack all sorts of people with repulsive insults, and who have no common sense, are the agents the mastermind must be using to isolate Erdogan behind a defense line of barbed wire.”

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