AK Party

The Justice and Development Party was established on August 14, 2001, with a founding declaration submitted to the Ministry of the Interior under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The official abbreviation of the party, which has a yellow and black emblem, is AK Party according to its statute. It was founded by reformists led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Abdullah Gul, and Bulent Arinc, who did not join the Felicity Party, which was founded as a continuation after the closure of the Welfare Party. AK Party took its first test in the elections on November 3, 2002, 15 months after its establishment. However, due to his conviction for reciting a poem in Siirt that forced him to resign from his position as the mayor of Istanbul, the party leader, Tayyip Erdogan, was unable to participate in the elections at the head of his party. Under these conditions, AK Party came to power with 34.63% of the vote in the November 3 elections. The 58th government was formed under the leadership of Abdullah Gul, and soon after, with the support of the main opposition CHP, the constitutional amendment was made to lift Erdogan's ban. Erdogan was also elected as a member of parliament after the renewed election in Siirt on March 8, 2003. Following the resignation of the government under Gul on March 11, 2003, the 59th government under Erdogan's leadership was formed on March 15. In the 2007 elections, which were held under the shadow of the April 27 statement, AK Party increased its votes to 46.58%. AK Party won 341 seats in parliament, and Erdogan formed the 60th government of the Republic of Turkey. Abdullah Gul, the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was elected as the 11th President of the Republic of Turkey, receiving 339 votes in the third round of the presidential election held on August 28, 2007. On March 14, 2008, Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya filed a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court to close AK Party, claiming that the party had become "a center of actions contrary to secularism." The prosecutor requested a 5-year ban from politics for 71 people, including President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan. In the decision announced on July 30, 2008, 6 of the 10 members voted to close the party, and 4 voted to cut off government funding. The party was not closed as the Chairman of the Constitutional Court, Hasim Kilic, voted against it. The decision was made to cut off half of the party's revenue. In the 2011 elections, AK Party returned to the seat of power with a vote share of nearly 50%, and also became the only party to increase its votes in three consecutive elections in history. On July 12, 2012, AK Party leader and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered the leader of the HAS Party, Numan Kurtulmus, a proposal to merge their parties. On September 19, 2012, at an extraordinary congress, the HAS Party was closed down with a decision of dissolution due to the merger, with 165 of the valid 177 votes. Following the decision, Numan Kurtulmus joined the AK Party on September 22, 2012, along with many party members in a ceremony. After the constitutional amendment was approved in the referendum on April 16, 2017, which opened the way for the President to be a member of a political party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected as the leader of the AK Party at the 3rd Extraordinary Grand Congress held on May 21, 2017, which he had founded. On June 24, 2018, in the Presidential elections, Erdogan was re-elected as President with a 52.59% vote rate. He took office as the first President under the Presidential Government System, which was put into effect with the constitutional amendment approved on April 16, 2017, by taking the oath on July 9, 2018. He will participate in the May 14 elections as the candidate of the People’s Alliance, in which the AK Party is a member. The People’s Alliance nominated Recep Tayyip Erdogan as their joint candidate.