Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

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Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi Justice and Development Party




Leader	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Founded	August 14, 2001
Headquarters	No. 202 Balgat Ankara, Turkey

Political Ideology	conservative
European Affiliation	European People's Party (observer)
International Affiliation	none
Colours	White, Yellow

Website	AK Parti

See also	Constitution of Turkey Turkish Politics Turkish Parliament Turkish Government Turkish President Political parties Elections

The Justice and Development Party: (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AKP, or AK Parti; the former of the two abbreviations is the official one, while the latter is mostly preferred by its supporters; since the word "ak" in Turkish means "white, clean, or unblemished" and therefore gives a positive impression about the party) The AKP is a right-wing, moderately conservative Turkish political party.

1 Brief Background
2 History
3 Other information
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] Brief Background

The AKP portrays itself as a moderate, right-wing conservative party. It won a landslide victory in the 2002 general elections, despite capturing barely a third of the popular vote, and its leader, former Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is currently the Prime Minister of Turkey.

[edit] History

The Justice and Development Party emerged from the members of the Welfare Party, which briefly led a coalition government in Turkey in 1996. In 2000 the Welfare Party was broken up by the military for allegedly threatening the secular nature of the Republic of Turkey according to the military officials. A faction of moderate conservative members within the old Welfare Party, known as Yenilikçiler, or in English, Reformist formed the Justice and Development Party on August 14, 2001, in an attempt to ground moderate conservative politics in a secular democratic framework.

After some initial stumbling, notably when Erdoğan was temporarily blocked from taking up the Prime Ministership, the AKP has found its feet. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion by the opposition Republican People's Party in parliament, which prevented the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory. It also prevented sending Turkish troops to Iraq—a move the AKP supported. The government has greatly increased Turkish chances of being given a date for membership of the European Union, notably by giving strong support to the ultimately doomed Annan Plan aimed at resolving the Cyprus conflict. It has been buoyed by rapid economic growth and an end to Turkey's three decade long period of hyperinflation—inflation had fallen to 8.8% by June 2004.

In the local elections of 2004, the AKP won an unprecedented 44% of the vote, making inroads against the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against Kurdish nationalists in the Southeast of Turkey.

One potential crisis looming on the horizon is that the EU must make a decision on whether or not to give Turkey a target date for accession by October 2005. Turkey has quite a good chance to join the EU—in early 2005, the AKP was admitted as an observer-member of the European People's Party, the conservative party of the EU, which means it is likely to become a full member of the group if Turkey is admitted to the EU. If the EU raises its hand against Turkey, however, many fear that the AKP could again split between its reformist and conservative factions, heralding another period of instability in Turkish politics.

[edit] Other information

The AKP draws particular support from the rural peasantry, and the children of rural peasants who have migrated to the major cities in millions. Despite placing itself on the right-wing of the political spectrum, it has implemented strong social programmes for the urban and rural poor, particularly at municipal level. In this it perhaps seeks to emulate, in Islamic form, the Christian Democratic/Christian Social tradition of Northwestern Europe, as exemplified by such parties as the CDU/CSU in Germany.

The party's logo is a lightbulb, symbolizing its plan for a modern yet religious Republic of Turkey. On domestic policy, the party is right-wing, and conservative.

Recently, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, current prime-minister and the leader of the AKP, has stated that "AKP is not a political party with a religious axis." According to an online survey at Kanaltürk, a turkish news channel, majority of the voters disagreed with Tayyip Erdoğan's statement. [1]