... New Era for the Kurdish Question
In May 2023, Turkey
held
its most recent general-parliamentary and presidential elections. Six parties from various political backgrounds came together to create a coalition against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to prepare for these elections. Despite his Kurdish and Alevi identity, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the then leader of the nation's major opposition party, ended up running for president as the opposition alliance's candidate. However, this identity, along with the opposition's incredibly ...
... abandoned opposition to the hijab and tried to build bridges with other political movements, including Islamists and conservative democrats. He also managed to convince Turkey’s nationalistic Good Party and the pro-Kurdish HDP to support the same candidate in the 2018 mayoral elections, when the opposition defeated the ruling AKP in Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in nearly two decades.
Kılıçdaroğlu promised to send millions of Syrian refugees back home and to restore relations with Syrian President Bashar Assad as part of his election ...
...
Leadership (2007–2010)
Expanding the electorate by publicizing economic achievements and mobilizing the “quagmire” – people who had voted for parties that no longer existed – was the AKP’s dominant strategy at the 2007 elections.
The AKP slogan “
No Stopping, Push On!
” served as a leitmotif of the elections. A number of similar slogans were devised: “Don’t leave the country halfway through”, “It’s time for democracy!” And by preserving ...
