Justice and Development Party. In November 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a party with Islamist roots, won 363 out of 550seats in parliament and formed the first single-party government in Turkey in over a decade. (1) Deputyparty leader Abdullah Gul became the first AKP prime minister. He ceded the position to partyleader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March 2003, after parliament lifted a ban on Erdogan's politicalparticipation and he won a seat in parliament. (2) Gulthen became Deputy Prime Minister and ForeignMinister. Prime Minister Erdogan and the AKP appear to be securely in power and, with its parliamentarymajority, AKP has been able to pass its legislative program. Divisions within the AKP evident onMarch 1, 2003, when parliament rejected a government resolution to approve the deployment of U.S.forces to Turkey to open a northern front against Iraq, have faded. (3) Although AKP's parliamentarygroup is cumbersome, it is not ripe for fissures mainly because of the strength of Erdogan'spersonality and his popularity with the grass roots, and partly because Members enjoy the perquisitesof office. Erdogan's power and charisma are making AKP increasingly similar to traditional Turkishpersonality-dominated political parties. To avoid the short lives of a series of earlier Islamist political parties, the AKP claims thepopular center-right of the political spectrum. Erdogan rejects the Islamist label, preferring to callhimself and his party "conservative democrats." Some of his statements could be part of anAmerican debate regarding church-state relations. For example, he has said, "While attaching importance to religion as a social value, we do not think it right to conduct politics through religion, to attempt to transformgovernment ideologically by using religion.... Religion is a sacred and collective value.... It shouldnot be made a subject of political partisanship causing divisiveness ... to make religion an instrumentof politics and to adopt an exclusionary approach to politics in the name of religion harms not onlypolitical pluralism but also religion itself." (4) The priority that Erdogan and other party leaders give to beginning accession talks with the European Union (EU) aids the AKP's political repositioning. EU reforms and the values theyimpose would pull the entire country to the center and to Western values. For example, the EUrequires equal freedoms for all believers -- for Muslims who are not Sunni and not accepted asMuslim by the AKP's more passionate Islamists, for Christians, Jews, and others who heretoforehave not been treated equally in Turkey. (For more on reforms, see European Union below.) However, Erdogan's attempt to distance AKP from its Islamist roots is undermined when some party officials and Members of Parliament raise issues with religio-political overtones that generatefriction with the secular establishment in the military, political opposition, and elements in themedia. For their part, secularists create discord when acting preemptively to counter real orsuspected signs of encroaching Islamism. There have been many instances of such tension. Headscarves are a major issue. In Turkey, a head scarf can simply be a sign of religious piety or it can bean assertive expression of opposition to secularism. The wearing of head scarves is banned in publicbuildings, such as parliament and universities. The military is particularly sensitive to this matter. On April 23, 2003, armed forces' commanders declined to attend a reception because the Speaker'swife wears a head scarf, and they did not know if she would attend. (She did not.) In August 2003,Chief of Staff General Hilmi Ozkok pointedly did not invite any officials' wives to a reception. InOctober, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer invited wives of all his guests except those of AKP deputieswho might wear head scarves to a Republic Day reception. Even some ardent secularists criticizedthe President's action as divisive. Erdogan refuses to enter this fray, saying that he is waiting for asocial/national consensus to emerge on the issue. He was "saddened" by the President'sdiscrimination, but attended the reception briefly with most members of his cabinet to avoid furthertension. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled, once again on June 29, 2004, that Turkey'sban on wearing head scarves in state schools does not violate freedom of religion, but rathersafeguards the principle of secularism necessary for the protection of the democratic system. (5) There have been other controversies about AKP's supposed "Islamist agenda." Foreign Minster Gul sent a circular to embassies encouraging contact with Turkish non-governmental organizationsabroad, including the National View ( Milli Gorus ), which promotes an Islamic state in Turkey. AnAKP-dominated parliamentary committee voted to add 15,000 new positions in the Directorate ofReligious Affairs, which oversees mosques, reportedly horrifying AKP leaders and defyinggovernment promises to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of public employment cuts. (6) TheFinance Minister said that no such appointments would be made. (7) Finally, on three occasions, thePrime Ministers (first Gul, then Erdogan) and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul have expressedreservations about the expulsion of allegedly fundamentalist soldiers from the armed forces atmeetings of the Supreme Military Council (YAS), insisting that those expelled be afforded the rightto judicial review. (8) Of potentially long-term consequence for Turkey's secular identity is education. The most heated disputes involve the AKP's attempts, in October 2003 and May 2004, to have the governmentexert greater control over the Higher Education Board and to allow graduates of religious ( imamhatip ) vocational high schools equal access to universities as those of normal high schools. Opponents viewed the bills as an effort to boost attendance at religious schools or to enable imamhatip graduates to qualify for government positions. Secularists on the Board, in opposition parties,universities, and the Office of the Chief of the General Staff, argued that the initiative was aimed atundermining "the basic principles of the republic," and they denounced it. (9) The prominence of themilitary command in the debate raised concerns about the country's political stability and highlighteddifferences between civil-military relations in Turkey and the rest of Europe at a time when the AKPgovernment is seeking EU accession talks. Some questioned why AKP decided to raise the issueat this time since the military's sensitivities are well known. With municipal elections just over andnational elections years off, AKP's stated rationale of needing to reward grassroots wasunconvincing. President Sezer vetoed the bills, asserting that they were "incompatible with the spiritof the Constitution, which is based on the Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal, founder of the Turkish Republic)principles...." (10) Although it could have overriddenthe vetoes by passing an identical bill again, thegovernment withdrew the bills from consideration. It may resubmit the bill again. Aside from the education bills, Erdogan has generally been politically adroit considering that the Turkish armed forces are the constitutional guarantors of Turkey's secularism and have displacedcivilian governments several times in the past. For example, he acceded to Chief of Staff GeneralHilmi Ozkok's request that the National Security Council (MGK) be headed by a military figure forone more year before it passed to a civilian in August 2004 as required by EU-related reforms. (Formore on the MGK changes, see European Union , below.) Erdogan has benefitted from having themoderate, enlightened, discreet Ozkok as chief of staff. Ozkok consults privately with governmentofficials, voices his opinions at closed National Security Council meetings. At an April 2004 newsconference, he noted that the Turkish Armed Forces "should not be expected to adopt a standregarding every issue or to share everything with the public." (11) Ozkok supports Turkey's EUambitions as the fulfillment of Ataturk's vision of Turkey as a modern, European state, even if thismeans a diminished role for the armed forces and the continuation in office of what the militaryviews as an Islamist government. The imam hatip bill provoked the general to issue rare publiccriticism of a government action. In addition to the military, Erdogan and the AKP often clash with President Sezer, a popular former judge and ardent secularist, who wields his veto power liberally. (12) Sezer's vetoes havedelayed, but not prevented, passage of parts of the government program. He has been moresuccessful in blocking AKP's appointees to the government, many of whom he views asnon-supportive of the secular state. (13) However,the AKP reportedly has placed many of those deniedpresidential approval in government positions not requiring presidential action. March 28, 2004, Municipal Elections. (14) AKPwon 41.6% of the vote in the municipal elections -- a strong showing which exceeded the combinedtotal of 38% of the vote won by its next three rivals. Strikingly, AKP won 57 out of 81 mayoralraces, including 12 out of 15 races in major metropolitan areas. In other words, AKP confirmed itsdominance of the center-right, the most popular segment of the Turkish political spectrum. There are several reasons for AKP's victory: First, its success in sustaining the country's economic stability has created widespread optimism. Second, its steady pursuit of EU membershipis very popular because of people's expectations of economic advancement with accession. (15) Third,its national leaders, including the charismatic Erdogan who spoke in 55 cities, campaignedenergetically and throughout the country.