TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

IFJ-INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALIST Justice and Development Party Political Party, Turkey The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is a political party led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (2001–14; 2017–) that came to power in Türkiye in the 2002 general elections. Although the party is not sectarian, the AKP enjoys significant support from non-secular Turks, and some segments of Turkish society have objected to the AKP's Islamist agenda, arguing that it could undermine Türkiye's secular foundations. Background and Foundation The AKP's success in the early 2000s can be traced back to the advancements made in the 1990s by the Welfare Party (RP), an Islamist party founded in 1983. In the 1980s and 1990s, bolstered by the growing role of Islam in Turkish life (evidenced by changes in dress and appearance, gender discrimination, the growth of Islamic schools and banks, and support for religious orders), the RP won a landslide victory in the 1995 parliamentary elections, becoming the first Islamist party to win a general election in Türkiye. However, in January 1998, the RP was banned by the Turkish Constitutional Court on the grounds that it was disrupting the secular order. Some members of the party joined the newly formed Virtue Party (VP; Virtue Party), but it too was banned in June 2001. In August, a group led by Abdullah Gül and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (former Mayor of Istanbul [1994-98]) moved to establish the AKP (AKP means "white" or "clean" in Turkish) as a democratic, conservative, and non-sectarian movement. Unlike its predecessors, the AKP did not center its image around an Islamic identity; Its leaders have emphasized that it is not an Islamist party and that its focus is on democratization, not the politicization of religion. However, the political roots of the AKP and its leadership, some of its political initiatives (including a proposal to regulate the display and advertising of alcohol), and the headscarves worn by the wives of some AKP leaders, including Emine Erdoğan and Hayrünnisa Gül, have made the AKP skeptical among some segments of Turkish society. Despite being a relatively new party, the AKP won enough seats in the November 2002 parliamentary elections to secure an absolute majority in the 550-seat parliament. Although Erdoğan was legally barred from serving in parliament or as prime minister due to a 1998 conviction for inciting religious hatred (he had recited a poem likening mosques to barracks, minarets to bayonets, and believers to the army), a constitutional amendment passed in December 2002 effectively removed Erdoğan's incapacity. After winning the by-election on March 9, 2003, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer asked him to form a new government, and he took office as prime minister on May 14, 2003. At the AKP's first general assembly, held in October of that year, members unanimously re-elected Erdoğan as party leader. The following year, the AKP was generally successful in local elections.