STAR- Columnist Zeynep Gurcanli comments on the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came out on top in Sunday’s elections. A summary of her column is as follows:
Will they make good Muslim democrats? This is the question occupying people’s minds in Turkey, the US and Europe, and even in other Muslim countries. Will the AKP, which, after Turkey’s long history of coalition governments finally has the chance to rule on its own, be able to take a stance similar to those of Europe’s Christian democratic parties? Will it be able to prove itself a Muslim democratic party? The ‘Muslim’ AKP’s taking such a democratic stance, in the middle-term, would be to Turkey’s benefit. It would also be an interesting partner for Europe. It would mean a great deal to the US, as the AKP will be a new model for other non-democratic Muslim countries.
Yet, the Arab Muslim countries would surely not like the idea of a democracy getting along with Islam, for that would spell the end for these countries ruled under monarchies or dictatorial regimes. Seen from such a perspective, AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have to face serious difficulties in dealing with his fundamentalist Islamist grassroots, which presumably constituted 10 percent of the party’s total 35 percent vote in Sunday’s elections, and to which Erdogan owes his leadership and his very presence in the political arena. On the other hand, there is the 25 percent of the people who voted for the AKP as a reaction against the incumbent leaders of the center-right, and whose concern was not religious but economic. The latter is such a group that once their economic demands are met, it will not turn its eyes to religion but to the modern world. Now, creating a delicate balance between these two groups of people is relatively easy while the country is moving into an economic recovery and increased prosperity. But what will happen after the nation reaches such a level of prosperity? This is a question to which there is as yet no answer.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION