The most democratic thing
This week, the closure case against the governing AK Party started. And I found out how it is possible for there to be Turks who call themselves democrats and at the same time support the closure of the AKP. Let me explain. The AKP won almost half of the votes in last year’s general election, so you could say the AKP came to power in a democratic way. You could argue that it goes against democracy to close down a party that has been democratically elected, even more so since there is no evidence whatsoever that the party is the ‘focal point of anti secular activities’, as the indictment says. But closing the AKP is, according to some Turks, the most democratic thing ever: they argue that the AKP wants to introduce sharia law, and since sharia law is not democratic and not secular, the most democratic thing you can do is to close down the AKP. Understand?
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