A new electoral victory for the 'Pro-Islamists' or the 'new centre-right'? The justice and development party phenomenon in the July 2007 parliamentary elections in Turkey

Abstract

The July 2007 elections took place in an atmosphere of polarization, with the central issue the nature of the Turkish political regime. The elections are contextualized within a long- as well as a short-term perspective, showing how the secularist-Islamist confrontation reflected a new version of a centre-periphery cleavage going back to the Ottoman empire. After a discussion of the aborted presidential election of May 2007, the results of the parliamentary elections are presented. The direct representation of Kurdish identity politics in Parliament for the first time may have significant implications for democratic consolidation. The article concludes by asking whether the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) has become the new centre in Turkish politics and whether Turkey is moving towards a dominant party system.