In the summer of 2008, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or AKP) narrowly escaped being banned by the country’s constitutional court. State prosecutors had alleged that the party which is officially committed to economic modernization, conservative moral values, and Turkey’s admission to the European Union was trying to breach the country’s notoriously strict separation of religion and politics, slowly Islamicize the state, and ultimately introduce theocracy.
Many local supporters of the AKP breathed a sigh of relief after the decision, as did non-Muslims who see the AKP as the prototype of a Muslim Democratic party that can appeal to believers while being fully committed to the rules (and values) of the democratic game.
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