Why AKP has changed

Some voices say Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is being left alone so he cannot produce new policies, that due to exhaustion his nervous system is worn out. Therefore, following the closure case, he has preferred the status quo and the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK, so they say. You can say that Mr. Prime Minister has never been a real democrat or liberal and is now returning to his origins.

Certainly, in all these statements, there is reality, as societal facts are usually not based on single reasons; what has influenced those reasons may be different though.

I, on the other hand, seek a single rational reason in every societal fact; therefore I see the change in AKP as based on one simple reason; Local elections!

Erdoğan is almost obsessed with winning İzmir, Diyarbakır and Çankaya municipalities and not losing the İstanbul and Ankara municipalities. His strategy does not focus on freedoms, demands, or pleasing liberals. These concepts no longer serve to bring him additional benefits.

Erdoğan intends to act with a new, more solid concept and a new alliance in local elections, both of which were planned in the past, but were not yet prioritized.
The National View and the appearance of income transfer!

What he thinks of as income transfer is gearing up distribution of coal and food, and pumping municipal expenditure to construct roads, bridges, cross-roads, parks etc.

For him, city planning projects are another way of earning extra money for the bread-and-butter. If Erdoğan is able to keep the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, busy enough, he may send the message, "Look, keeping foreigners away helps us to direct public resources at your service." As part of the plan, the economy will not depend on the IMF, a reliable international institution. However, it is necessary to take a chance on the impact of this on the economy and the political cost of layoffs, until March.

I think Mr. Prime Minister has already made the cost-benefit analysis as part of his choice. Erdoğan wants to use the National View group, acting together with the AKP, to make more compromises. There are two reasons behind this;

1) Young, dynamic Numan Kurtulmuş was elected as the new leader of the Saadet Party, or SP. So National Viewers are motivated by that. But now the AKP needs a new motivation to keep former National Viewers in the party. This time Erdoğan will praise National Viewers and will clearly rely on them in the elections.

2) Erdoğan also plans to activate Islamist Kurds, who are fed up with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and who are quite strong in the Southeast, rather than concentrating on freedom for Kurds in general. Instead of stealing votes from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, Erdoğan has planned to bring more non-DTP votes to his party.

However, I cannot measure how well Erdoğan has made the cost-benefit analysis, how much pro status quo policies, not including the discourse of freedom, acting together with the military, will influence Islamist Kurds. Besides, I really would not know the extent to which he will be supported by the Gülen Community and Hezbolllah, both of which are very influential with Islamist Kurds.