Abstract
This chapter seeks to analyze the two elections constituting landmarks in the rise of political Islam to power in Turkey: the 1994 municipal elections and the 2002 general elections. The Welfare Party (RP) captured the greater city municipalities such as Istanbul and Ankara in the 1994 municipal elections in. İn the 2002 general elections, the collapse of the three-party coalition of the Democratic Left Party (DSP), Motherland Party (ANAP), and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) brought the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power. Hitherto it has widely been argued that the rise of political Islam owes to a deep antagonism between the “center” and “periphery.” According to this view, Kemalist regime mainly identified with centralist civil-military bureaucracy and political elite, and the traditional opposition mainly identified with various forms of Sunni Islam. In this configuration, the center has been regarded as a “unified core” and the Sunni Islam has been considered as a “peripheral movement.”
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Ulusoy, K. (2014). Elections and Regime Change in Turkey: Tenacious Rise of Political Islam. In: Hamad, M., al-Anani, K. (eds) Elections and Democratization in the Middle East. Elections, Voting, Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137299253_9
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