Conclusion

Views of Ummah Movement and WP, which came to the forefront of Turkish political history as a different color and voice, with a considerable support from the public, was in a different position in the democratization process of Turkey compared to other parties, in both negative and positive sense.

As is seen in this study, Views of Ummah contributed a lot to Turkish democratization. It must be considered as a great success that the WP behaved as a spokesperson for the people who were under pressure due to their Islamic

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sensitiveness, and took as a duty to lend a hand to them when other parties were deaf. Views of Ummah managed to reach those needy ones who lived in slums and countryside, so got a great political support.

Views of Ummah Movement had an important tendency, which lied behind its rise and determined its middle class policy. This is its "just economic order"

approach, which embraced poor people living in urban areas, residents of the slums and new immigrants deprived of social security, especially through the municipalities they took over after 1990. Although it was not put into action, with this approach, the movement established bonds with these masses through charity actions such as food, cloth, fuel, and health allowances for the poor sections of society. Effective municipality services provided improved the life quality of people considerably. Support to the party increased quickly when urban income was shared (even if it was not unequally) with large masses.

According to some people, Just Order rhetoric was a completely utopian discourse, and was never put into action and implemented.

As is also understood from the study, WP's election strategy and the campaign also had a positive role in process of democratization in Turkey. This model, which would set an example for its successor parties, was quite remarkable; especially with "rosary model" as the party's organizational model, a responsible person was assigned to each district, and this person assigned responsible members for each street, road and even apartment in the district. In this way, the party tried to reach all layers of society. Therefore, they listened to the opinions and wishes of almost all sections and tried to evaluate them. In addition to this, nominating candidates in all regions, municipalities even if it is known that winning the election is impossible was a strategy, which was never adopted in the history of Turkish democracy.

Views of Ummah used to be hand in hand with its citizens not only in domestic but also in abroad thanks to its organizations, especially ‘European Views of Ummah Organization’. Also, it lent a hand to the Muslims throughout the World and won their hearts thanks to ‘The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH)’.

Women for the first time had a chance to take part in policy on a religious-based platform thanks to the women’s branches of the WP. As stated above, the women were in the background in conservative societies. However, they did politics in a conservative base with the encouragement of the WP. This was one of the most important acquisitions which the WP and Views of Ummah contributed to democratization process of Turkey.

As it is mentioned in the study, it was obvious that representatives of Views of Ummah Movement had a negative effect on the democratization of Turkey due to the policies they pursued especially during the February 28 process. The way Necmettin Erbakan expressed his religious goals in a manner that would offend a section of society and invited leaders of religious congregations and sects to iftar meals at Prime Minister's residence, regarded Religious Vocational High Schools as their backyards were among these discourses and policies.

These policies damaged Views of Ummah in specific and democratization of Turkey in general.

Finally, another aspect I would like to point out is that although Views of Ummah Movement received a significant public support, yet its period of power was not strong and permanent. Due to its radical attitude, the party gave the impression of an organization, which can be cast out from the power with methods beyond politics. Therefore, the authentic bourgeoisie, which needed an environment of confidence, creased to regard WP as their representative.


CHAPTER FIVE: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY (ADALET VE KALKINMA PARTISI, AKP) AND

IT’S IMPORTANCE IN TURKISH POLITICAL LIFE 5.0 Introduction

The AKP is a social conservative party established on August 14, 2001.

Some of the founders and prominent names were those who were close to the now-defunct Virtue Party (FP) or who didn’t join the Felicity Party (SP), which was established after the closure of the FP, which was considered to be the continuation of the FP. The party tried to attract a lot of politicians who were ³⁶⁰ previously affiliated with other political opinions during the establishment of the party as well as in later years.

Just after its establishment, the AKP entered the parliament as the single-government party with 34% of the vote it garnered in the November 2002 elections. AKP was the first party in Turkey that became the ruling party in ³⁶¹ the first election after its establishment. In the July 22 early parliamentary elections in 2007, it got the largest percentage of votes (47%) after Democratic Party in Turkey. Both elections caused a very different picture as of the period of the multi-party political regime after the Second World War.

The AKP, which stated that it did not follow the tradition of the Views of Ummah after its establishment, defined itself as "conservative-democrat".

Despite the fact that it came from the roots of the Views of Ummah, it introduced a new rhetoric and phrase into the Turkish politics with the definition of "conservative-democrat". With its conservative viewpoint, it followed policies different than its predecessors. There were radical changes in both domestic politics and foreign policy. Although they come from the tradition of the Views of Ummah, they stated that they did not adopt the classical conservative way of thinking, they were extrovert, they championed a progressive change and transformation and they were opposed to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The AKP elites emphasized that "conservative

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democracy" is an area of reconciliation against polarization, which does not reject the existence of the interaction and relationship between these ideologies, against the ideologies that divide the world into sharp fault lines.

AKP, in its first years, affected the democratization process positively.

Great achievements were made in the early years of AKP in terms of the democratization of the country. When we compare this between past and the first period of AKP, AKP did more developments in different fields, such as the promotion of the human rights standard, social equality, and reduction of military authority. The objective of this chapter is to reveal the process of establishment of the AKP, which succeeded to garner the most votes in all the elections it participated since the day it was established, and its effects on Turkish democratization. At the same time, the conservative democratic identity of the party, the 2007 presidential election, and e-memorandum, which have an important place in Turkish politics, and to explain what happened in this process are among the other objectives of this chapter.