Turkey’s March 2009 Local Elections

Abstract: This article examines Turkey's 2009 local elections in which the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) lost some of its votes. The article argues that the AKP's mismanagement of the Turkish economy facing the global economic crisis, the AKP-related corruption scandals, the party's authoritarian tendencies vis--vis the secular segment of the society, the party's Kurdish policy, and its inability to satisfy the Islamist electorate's political demands account for the decline in the AKP's vote-share. Although there was a decline in the AKP's vote-share, the party continued to rank first. The AKP's strong organizational networks with diligent party workers, through which the party successfully distributed selective material incentives to poorly educated, low-income voters in shantytowns and rural areas, account for this result.