Cracks in the façade
A senior member of Turkey’s ruling party breaks ranks with the president
RIDING on robust growth and democratic reforms, Turkey’s pro-Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party has won three terms in power since 2002. With parliamentary elections due on June 7th, its secular rivals gloomily thought that AK was poised for another victory. That was until Bulent Arinc, the government spokesman and a founding member of the party, let rip at his leader.
Over the past week, Mr Arinc has been doing what no AK official had ever dared: publicly castigating Turkey’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Arinc called his fellow AK founder “emotional”, and said he had harmed himself by criticising peace talks between the government and the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "Cracks in the façade"
From the March 28th 2015 edition
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