AKP

As Turkey's ruling Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party / AKP) prepares to lay out its defence today against the Turkish constitutional court's attempts to shut it down, Ipek Kuran argues that the court case is a chance for the AKP to prove its secular credentials. Much of the western press has painted the ongoing legal wrangle as one pitting the politically-motivated secularist judiciary against the democratically-elected Islamists of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party. But in the eyes of many Turks, Erdogan's party has dallied too long in the controversial arena of symbols, playing majoritarian politics in spite of the law.