While it outstripped its adversaries in the opinion polls conducted in Turkey on the eve of the recent municipal elections, no one had expected the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to win about 46 per cent of the vote, which is to say six to seven percentage points higher than it fared in the last municipal elections in 2009. Perhaps this explains the rises on the Turkish stock exchange and the strengthening in the value of the Turkish lira against the dollar since then. Not that the robustness of the Turkish economy was in question, as international experts have ranked it as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and the fastest-growing economy in Europe. Certainly the economic achievements produced by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan during his decade in power were a major factor in the successes he and his party have won in various electoral stages since 2002. However, this cannot be the only factor. After all, many ruling parties have been defeated in spite of conditions of economic success and progress. There were other factors that contributed to the AKP's lead. The opposition in Turkey is weak, for example. It lacks a unifying charismatic figure capable of rivaling Erdogan. Consisting of diverse political and ideological groupings and affiliations from the far left to the ultra-nationalist right, as well as a cohesive Kurdish movement, the opposition is very divided and would be unlikely to converge behind a single leader or a collective political platform. This fragmentation is grist for Erdogan's mill. It feeds his campaigns to lash out at his rivals as the source of all the economic woes from which his government has allegedly rescued Turkey. The AKP propaganda machine constantly drives home the message that a vote for any of the opposition parties is a vote to drag the country backwards to the days of government incompetence and chronic economic crisis, while a vote for the AKP is a vote for the future and economic health and prosperity. The Turkish army is also no longer a key player in the Turkish political field, having succumbed to NATO and EU pressures to remain politically neutral as a condition for Turkey's accession to the EU. As a result, the military is no longer in a position to intervene against the Islamist AKP and in favour of secularists or the ultranationalist right, which were known for their close connections to the secularist military establishment. Since its emergence, the AKP has relied heavily on Turkey's large rural and religiously conservative support base. This is most likely the class that has benefited the most from Turkey's economic achievements. Simultaneously, in view of its religious conservatism its vote is also less likely to swing. It would certainly not be inclined to relinquish support for the religiously conservative AKP, all the more so given the success of its powerful propaganda machine in stirring up suspicion against its rivals and arousing fears that the secularists' return to power could threaten mosques and religious education. Many would have also been inspired by Erdogan's pledges to revive the country's ancient Ottoman glory, a chord that was struck by the title of the AKP's 2012 Party Convention: Toward a Great Turkish Nation. The rural and conservative nature of Erdogan's support base may also explain why this base has not been eroded by the graft scandal that erupted last December or why it bought into the conspiracy theory that Erdogan wove to account for it. Indeed, Erdogan's skill at playing the victim of a conspiracy against him at home and abroad may have worked to offset some of the damage to his party's prospects from the corruption scandals. At all events, it looks as if he has succeeded to a considerable extent in deflecting attention away from those scandals and toward Fathullah Gulen, his enemy in Pennsylvania, who, according to Erdogan, has masterminded the plot against Turkey and carried it out through his tentacles in the country. According to some Turkish political analysts, conspiracy theorising goes a long way with large segments of Turkish public opinion. It has made little difference to many that, in the manner of a third-world dictator, Erdogan has blurred the line between him and his party and the nation and its welfare such that according to his logic to accuse him or those around him of corruption would be to insult Turkey as a whole and to criticise him or his government would be an assault against the nation. In spite of the disastrous defeat to Erdogan's regional strategy following the Arab Spring revolutions and the huge setback to his plans involving Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Erdogan has refused to toe the western line with regard to intervention in Syria. He sponsored an armed assault against the town of Kessab in northwestern Syria and downed a Syrian military aircraft on the eve of the voting in Turkey on the grounds that it had violated Turkish airspace. The fact that the Syrian authorities protested that the plane was in Syrian territory in order to defend the town from assault by Al-Qaeda-linked militias did not keep Erdogan from proclaiming in his post-election speech that he would strike again in response to any breach of Turkish territory. He also took advantage of the occasion to lash out again against Egypt and other countries in the Arab world that have turned away from the Muslim Brotherhood, signaling Ankara's continued determination to meddle in Arab domestic affairs in the pursuit of expansionist dreams intended to revive a past in which the Arab world was just a collection of provinces centrally administered by the sadrazam (grand vizier) on behalf of the Ottoman padishah (Sublime Porte). A consummate populist demagogue, Erdogan has also deftly manipulated mass psychology in order to induce it into equating the nation and the national interest with the personality of the leader, thereby placing that leader above the rule of law. It was no coincidence that Twitter, followed by Youtube, platforms on which tapes exposing corruption scandals allegedly involving members of his government and his own family, were banned on the eve of the municipal elections and within hours of Erdogan's giving the signal. The Youtube ban followed the publication of yet another recording, this time of deliberations involving Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and regarding plans for a limited Turkish military intervention in Syria. However, rather than becoming an occasion to call the prime minister to account for his conspiracy to drag Turkey into direct engagement in Syria, Erdogan turned the table on his enemies — the political opposition, social-networking sites and all those accused of collaborating with forces at home and broad against Turkey, which, in Erdogan's book, means himself. Otherwise put, Erdogan has placed himself beyond the laws of transparency and accountability, indeed beyond all moral and institutionalised checks on his exercise of power. It would not be unjust to liken him to Hitler and Mussolini. The elements of charismatic dogmatic leadership, the drive to monopolise power, the blend of ideology (ultra-religious or ultra-nationalist) and military power, a feeble and divided opposition, a strong rural popular base and economic success after a period of economic straits are all there, just as they were in Germany and Italy during the rise of Nazi and fascist control. However, there is also an important difference. The world today knows the dangers of the slide into fascism and totalitarianism. Moreover, large segments of Turkish public opinion are aware that as a result of that slide their country would lose everything it has gained through democracy. Perhaps this explains why Erdogan has failed to push through constitutional amendments that would transform Turkey into a presidential system such as the French Fifth Republic and in which the presidential term would be seven years, renewable for two terms. If such amendments occurred, the Turks could be staring at 30 years of Erdogan's rule, half as prime minister and the other half as president. But democracy is not yet dead in Turkey. Erdogan and the AKP machine may have escaped accountability for the graft and corruption scandals via the recent municipal elections, but the results of those elections may not necessarily bring a close to that chapter. Certainly his room for manoeuvre has narrowed, and there will always be those waiting to reopen the ledgers at the first electoral setback or economic crisis. Indeed, it may be telling that while the AKP scored higher in the 2014 municipal elections than it did in the 2009 municipal polls, it scored several points lower than it did in the last general elections in 2011 when it won 49 per cent of the vote.
