Justice and Development Party (Turkey)

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Template:Infobox Turkish Political Party

The Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or AK Parti, or AKP^[1]) is the ruling Turkish political party that describes itself as centre-right conservative party. AKP is the descendant of a previous party that was banned for being "anti-secular." Supreme Court prosecutors asked the Constitutional Court of Turkey to ban the AK Party,^[2] however, the court rejected the banning.^[3]

The AKP portrays itself as a moderate, conservative, pro-Western party that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union.^[4] The party's detractors accuse it of harboring a hidden Islamist agenda due to its deep roots in the religious community and the affiliations of some of its members with banned Islamic parties (RP,FP), although little evidence for this has been provided.^{[citation needed]} The AKP won 46.6% of the popular vote and was allocated 341 seats^[5] in the rescheduled 22 July, 2007 elections. While the total vote share represented a massive increase over the 34% of the vote it received in the 2002 general elections, the AKP ultimately garnered fewer seats as a result of the MHP passing the 10% total vote threshold necessary to claim parliamentary seats.^[6] Abdullah Gül, a prominent AKP leader and former Foreign Minister, is currently the President of Turkey, while Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the head of the party and the country's prime minister.

Erdoğan’s AK Party altered the traditional focus of religiously-affiliated politics from concern over Turkey’s lack of Islamic characteristics to pushing for democratic and economic reforms in addition to stressing moral values through the communitarian-liberal consensus. Erdoğan also sought to temper his party’s Islamist image through building a broad-reaching coalition with members of center-right parties, and promising to further Turkey’s push to join the European Union. Erdoğan also positioned the AKP as the opposition party to the old, secular, state-driven development parties that had been proven ineffective by the repeated economic crises of the 1990s and early 2000s^{[citation needed]}.

A faction of moderate conservative members within the now-banned Welfare Party, known as Yenilikçiler, or in English, the Reformist faction, formed the Justice and Development Party on August 14, 2001, in an attempt to ground moderate conservative politics in a secular democratic framework. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of the AK Party, stated that "AK Party is not a political party with a religious axis" when the party was founded.

Despite the parties statements AKP brought on many changes that are interpreted as non-secular or Islamic rooted. In 2005 AKP deemed illegal the sale of alcoholic beverages in a section of Ankara which mostly occupied by bars and restaurants. This ban was soon after lifted due to response from the business owners, however a licensing requirement still remains for the establishments. AKP has also been accused of placing anti-secular individuals in government offices and giving out government contracts to parties reputated for being Islamically rooted. In 2007 AKP proposed and passed a bill lifting the Head Scarf Ban in all Universities, which also gathered critique response from the seculars, which served as the last straw, leading to the 2008 indictments for the Parties closure. Upon 2008 inducements, AKP government has made multiple arrests in the secular population with accusations of conspiracy and orchestrating of a possible military coup. It has been interpreted as the final attempts to rid the country of powerful secularist before possible closure.

After some initial stumbling, notably when Erdoğan was temporarily blocked from taking up the Prime Ministership, the AK Party has found its feet. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion where over a hundred AKP MPs joined those of the opposition Republican People's Party in parliament to prevent the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory.

The AK Party has undertaken significant structural reforms and its policy achievements have seen rapid growth and an end to Turkey's three decade long period of hyperinflation—inflation had fallen to 8.8% by June 2004. Influential business publications, the Economist and the Financial Times, consider the AK Party's government the most successful in Turkey in decades.^[7]

In the local elections of 2004, the AK Party won an unprecedented 42% of the valid votes making inroads against the secular nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) on the South and West Coasts, and against Social Democratic People's Party (Turkey) which is supported by some Kurds in the Southeast of Turkey.

In January 2005, the AK Party was admitted as an observer member in the European People's Party (EPP), the conservative party of the EU. It is likely to become a full member of the EPP if Turkey is admitted to the EU. If the EU eventually rejects Turkey for membership, however, many fear that the AKP could again split between its reformist and conservative factions, heralding another period of instability in Turkish politics.

The AKP achieved a landslide victory in the rescheduled July 22 2007 elections with 46.6% of the vote, translating into control of 341 of the 550 available parliamentary seats. Although the AK Party received significantly more votes in 2007 than in 2002, the number of parliamentary seats they controlled decreased due to the rules of the Turkish electoral system. However, they retain a comfortable ruling majority.^[4]

Territorially, the elections of 2007 saw a major advance for the AK Party, with the party outpolling the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party in traditional Kurdish strongholds such as Van and Mardin, as well as outpolling the secular-left CHP in traditionally secular areas such as Antalya and Artvin. Overall, the AKP secured a plurality of votes in 68 of Turkey's 81 provinces, with its strongest vote of 71% coming from Bingöl. Its weakest vote, a mere 12%, came from Tunceli, the only Turkish province where the Alevi sect form a majority.^[8]

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Özyürek, the chief prosecutor of Turkey said "According to the laws in effect, if a party is committing crimes and has really become a 'hotbed of anti-secular activities,' in accordance with the constitution, the office of the chief prosecutor is left with no other choice but to file this closure lawsuit." The prosecution supports this ban with "evidence" it has lifted from Google.^{[citation needed]}

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The chief prosecutor's office made the "chief prosecutor file" public on March 14 2008. The Prime Minister Erdoğan and deputy chairmen immediately convened the governing body to discuss the chief prosecutor file the next day. The constitutional court reviewed the file and decided to accept the indictment.

The constitutional court reviewed both the initial response of AK party and technical position and develop questions regarding the positions. The Court's questions were presented to the AK Party officials. Deputy Prime Minister Çiçek, known for his oratorical skills, presented the AK Party's defense testimony in court. A court-appointed rapporteur advocated in his report that the Court should reject the closure case.^[9]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

:tr:Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi'nin Temelli Kapatılması İstemine İlişkin Savcılık İddianamesi

In the indictment—comprised of 17 folders, according to initial reports—in addition to the AK Party's disbanding, the prosecutor demanded a five-year ban from involvement in politics for 71 senior AK Party administrators, including Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, based on the following allegations.

1. The Political Islam represented by AK Party claims to change state rules; members of the party have acts in the area between the "Person" and "the God", which is banned to politicians by the Turkish constitution.
   1. AK Party has arrangements based on Sharia. (a) Party leader Tayyip Erdogan claimed in Spain in January 2008 stating "Even if the (headscarf) is a political symbol, the constitution and the courts do not have right to ban it."
   2. AK Party has modified articles 10 and 42 of the Constitution to change the essence of the principle of secularism.
2. AK Party used the executive powers based on "Public arrangements with religious rules;" this form of decision making is banned by the constitution.

After deliberating for three days, the Court gave its verdict on July 30, 2008. A qualified majority of votes was required to disband a political party, which means that at least 7 out of the 11 members of the Court needed to vote for the closure of the party.

Six members of the Court voted in favor of disbanding the party, thus falling short of the required qualified majority by one vote.^[10] Four members voted to cut government funding for the party, while the Court leader rejected to close it down. The Court rejected most of the demands of the prosecutor, but ruled for a 50% reduction of government funding for the party.

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