Number: RS21355
Title: Turkey's November 3, 2002 National Election
Authors: Carol Migdalovitz, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division 
Abstract: In Turkey's November 3, 2002 national election, voters vented their frustrations over an impoverishing recession, a painful IMF program, and endemic corruption by expelling the governing coalition parties and others. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamist roots, won by occupying the terrain of the majority center-right of Turkish politics. It will form a government without its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been banned because of an Islamist speech. AKP's highest priorities are economic recovery and accession negotiations with the European Union. It might offer the United States a useful model of a Muslim democracy, and its initially pragmatic foreign policy may be in line with U.S. aims regarding Iraq, Cyprus, and the European Union.
Pages: 6
Date: Updated November 14, 2002