The Justice and Development Party (AK Party), in power since 2002, will celebrate the 23rd anniversary of its foundation on Wednesday with a major event and possibly, new members.
Dubbing itself the “Nation’s Party,” the AK Party still goes strong, never ceding the countless elections it competed in. Although it lost to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in several provinces in last March’s municipal elections for the first time, the party retains a majority in Parliament while its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, secured another four-year term as president in last year’s general elections.
Türkiye was struggling with the aftermath of a string of coalition governments whose bickering and policies affected the economy when the AK Party hit the political scene as the 39th political party of the country under the leadership of Erdoğan in 2001.
The party started out as the “Movement of The Virtuous” before it adopted its formal political identity. Formed by cadres mostly split from the conservative Welfare Party (RP), it went on to offer a new space for people disillusioned with other parties. As many expected that it would face the fate of the RP, which was forced to operate under different names due to a political ban, the AK Party overcame obstacles along its path to power, including a similar ban.
On Aug. 14, the party will host events in Türkiye’s 81 provinces to mark the anniversary under the theme of “AK Party: Name of Hope, Future and Action.” An event in the capital Ankara will be central to the celebrations and several prominent politicians from other parties are expected to formally join the party in that event.
Though the political landscape in the year it was founded propelled the AK Party to the spotlight, landmark steps by successive AK Party governments helped it to stay in power for more than two decades. Those include breaking the taboo on several issues such as the Kurdish question and a headscarf ban. Along the way, it faced lawsuits for its closure and several coup attempts. Erdoğan himself was barred from politics after he was imprisoned for 10 months for reciting a poem deemed offensive for the country’s ruling elite, which toppled a coalition government of Erdoğan’s political mentor Necmettin Erbakan in 1997. This ban only ended in 2003 and he became the second prime minister of the AK Party after a brief tenure by Abdullah Gül. Since then, he served either as prime minister or president and is credited with expanding his party’s support to the wider public through a string of reforms in public services.
The party had its first challenge to remain in power in the 2004 local elections. But the sweeping social change bringing the AK Party to power as the voice of the previously unheard masses also brought it its first municipal election victory. With a vote rate of 41.7%, the AK Party won seats in 1,765 municipalities. In the next general election, it further cemented its success by winning more than 46% of the vote. The successive elections were almost a carbon copy of each other for the AK Party in terms of the high rate of vote, despite fluctuations at times.
It was not an easy road to power for the party, though, amid strict opposition from remnants of military and judiciary tutelage. In 2008, the party faced closure, while Erdoğan and other senior figures faced political bans when the Constitutional Court approved pleas for the closure of the party. It ultimately staved off the closure at the end of the legal process.
Undaunted, the party did not step back from its goal of the prevalence of democracy. In 2014, Erdoğan had the honor of being the first publicly elected president of Türkiye after legal amendments advocated by the party were approved. In 2016, Erdoğan handed the seat of the AK Party leadership to Binali Yıldırım, who went on to be elected as prime minister.
In 2017, the party brought another major change to Türkiye. A referendum in favor of an executive presidential system was overwhelmingly approved by the public, also eliminating the clause that the president should resign from his party. In 2018, Erdoğan was elected as the first president of the new system.
Accustomed to the victories, Erdoğan faced a tough test in the 2023 elections. For the first time and in the face of an unprecedented alliance of the opposition, Erdoğan was forced to participate in a runoff election on May 28. Still, the public support apparently did not fade for the president, who won the runoff with more than 52% of the vote.
