Turkey's extraordinary local elections

The past year leading up to the March 30 local elections marked an extraordinary and unusually tough period for Turkey. It all started when a delegation from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) visited PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on Jan. 3, 2013 to mark the beginning of peace talks with the government. Just five days later, unidentified gunmen assassinated PKK member Sakine Cansız, a close associate of Öcalan, along with two others in Paris, France. The triple homicide caused a major controversy in Turkey.

Meanwhile, unidentified groups leaked select records of talks in Oslo between the Turkish government and the PKK in order to cause public outrage and derail negotiations.

Trusting that past grievances of Turks and Kurds would prove stronger than the prospect of peace, the perpetrators sought to manipulate the masses. Soon after, urban revolts erupted across the country.

Surely enough, various observers blew the government's faulty management of the crisis out of proportion in an attempt to encourage the Alevi community and the Kurds to take to the streets. Against the backdrop of widespread protests, a media campaign sought to isolate the Turkish prime minister while political critique rapidly evolved into irrational protest. A group of self-proclaimed liberals of Kemalist background, who could not get enough of Mr. Erdoğan moments ago, allied themselves with the ultra-secularists, their once archenemies.

All these developments followed a period of unprecedented economic success in the country. As the Gezi Park protests died down, the new challenge to the government came from the elite ranks of the Gülen Movement.

The fallout between the AK Party and the Gülenists seemingly occurred due to the former camp's plans to shut down prep schools, a key element in the Gülenist recruitment of young followers. In truth, however, the group sought to disassociate its membership from the AK Party, whom they had supported for the past decade.

Soon enough, it became clear that Gülenist operatives within law enforcement and the judiciary had been covertly working to target Erdoğan and his family.

What followed was nothing short of chaos for the country as millions of people woke up to find that new confidential information about state operations, politicians and journalists had been leaked the previous night. Meanwhile, a legal investigation revealed that Gülenist operatives had abused their authority to eavesdrop on hundreds of thousands of citizens based on made-up charges. Days before the local elections, the same group leaked sound recordings of a senior-level meeting that took place just weeks ago at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was amidst such extraordinary circumstances that Erdoğan and his AK Party won a landslide victory with 46.2 percent of the vote. Having collaborated with the Gülenist shadow state over the past months, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) failed to implement their game plans, even though a skillfully-crafted strategy made sure that anti-government votes would go to the strongest opposition party at local races. The vast majority, however, made it clear that they opted for stability over dirty tricks. The local elections also marked a significant win for the BDP, who outperformed the MHP in the Istanbul mayoral race and won more municipal races across the nation than Turkish nationalists. Meanwhile, the AK Party won 51 out of 81 provinces to become the only party with nationwide appeal while claiming various urban districts, including three key areas in the secularist stronghold İzmir, where the CHP successfully defended the metropolitan municipality. The ruling party seemed to lose by a small margin in most electoral districts that remained with opposition parties. As such, Sunday's elections marked an eighth consecutive victory for the AK Party that significantly improved on its local election performance while demonstrating it was still in the game after 12 years in power.

All in all, the March 30 elections proved to be quite an important test for Turkish democracy. Despite various attempts against the government, the AK Party succeeded in leading the country to elections as scheduled. The most striking outcome of the elections, of course, was that Mr. Erdoğan emerged as the top contender for the upcoming presidential race in August 2014, which the prime minister made clear in his victory speech. Meanwhile, election results left the opposition facing a serious crisis. Opposition parties believed that the Gülen Movement's support and power - albeit immoral - represented a force that could help them push Mr. Erdoğan out of power. Although almost all parties joined forces and enjoyed significant media backing, the elections did not yield the desired results. Their voters, without a doubt, will hold their respective parties accountable for forming alliances of questionable credibility. Perhaps this way, the opposition parties will reconsider their reliance on extra-parliamentary forces in their attempts to govern the country; for Turkey's greatest problem is not the AK Party but the opposition parties whose disrespect for the people needs to be addressed.