Returning from the northwestern Black Sea city of Kastamonu, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s convoy was attacked on May 4. As part of his election campaign Erdogan had visited the city to address its residents urging them to vote for his Justice and Development Party (AKP). He then flew by helicopter to a nearby city to continue his campaign, while his election convoy, including his campaign bus from which he usually delivers speeches and greets the people, was returning to the AKP headquarters in Ankara. When Erdogan’s campaign bus was 25 km from the city centre, around the Ilgaz Mountains, a sudden burst of machinegun fire targeted the police car escorting the convoy. After the initial shots, the attackers came closer to the police car and threw a grenade which set the car on fire, injuring one police officer and killing another in the vehicle. After a brief exchange of gunfire with the prime minister’s bodyguards, the attackers fled the scene without suffering any casualties.
The Turkish High Court’s decision on Wednesday 30 July to not ban the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) was hailed by some as a victory for democracy. The decision was the outcome of three days of deliberations over the case, which had first reached the court early in March.
Hopes that the persecution of hijabi women in Turkey – a substantial majority of the population – might soon be eased were dashed on June 5, when the Turkish constitutional court overturned the decision announced by the government February to relax the hijab ban in universities. The Court ruled that the government decision was unlawful because it was anti-secularist and unconstitutional.
On the eve of Turkey’s parliamentary elections, Hurriyet, a daily paper in Ankara, predicted that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would not get more than 30 percent of the popular vote. In the election on July 22, the AKP increased its vote by 12 percentage points to 46.5 percent from a crowded field of 14 political parties and 700 independent candidates. Despite increasing its share of the electorate’s votes, the AKP’s seats declined slightly to 341 from the 354 it had had in the outgoing parliament of 550.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which was a convincing victor in the parliamentary elections on November 3, and has now formed a government, has been variously described in the Western media as ‘Islamist’, ‘rooted in ‘Islam,’ and even ‘Islamic-tinged’.
The overwhelming victory achieved by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Turkish general election on November 3 has been described as a “political earthquake” and a “revolution”.
