President Erdogan's palace. Demotix/ Nathan Morley. All rights reserved.Democracy in Turkey has not fared well under the current AKP (Justice and Development Party) government. Since coming to power in 2002, there has been a backsliding in democracy and the Turkish parliament has done little to prevent this. Initially, many greeted the AKP with enthusiasm: western democrats in particular. In its first years in power, the party reined in the inclinations of the military and the judiciary to arbitrarily intervene in political life. Restrictions on wearing the headscarf in public were lifted in the name of promoting freedom of expression. More liberal policies were pursued towards the Kurdish population, to the point of negotiating with the PKK.
Creeping authoritarianism
Yet with hindsight, and after 14 years of AKP rule (12 of them under the premiership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan), these policies actually look like the beginnings of democratic backsliding. Reining in the military and judiciary has allowed the AKP to assert its power free of checks and balances. The result is an intermeshing of the state and the party. A creeping, moderate Islamisation of public social life is evident. Media interference and persecution of those who criticise the government is common. Most recently, confrontational policies with Kurdish communities and the PKK have resumed.
