Word: secularist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Erdogan's strategy appeared to have paid off. His party far outdistanced the main secularist opposition People's Republican Party (CHP), which trailed with 20% of the vote. It was a shattering defeat for the party, which had urged voters to defend the secular political system established in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk against what they claim is the political Islam of Erdogan and his party...
Voters in Turkey delivered incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a resounding victory in elections Sunday, crushing the secularist opposition that sought to topple Erdogan - whose Islamist roots, they fear, pose a threat to the country's secular order...
...election to nearly 47% Sunday, according to preliminary results. It marks the first time in 52 years that Turks have voted an incumbent party back into power with even more support than before. It is also a profound sign of Turks' disaffection with the traditional secularist elite...
...Erdogan called the early election in May to reaffirm his mandate after the country's secularist establishment - including its powerful generals - blocked him from appointing Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as President. Gul, whose wife wears an Islamic-style headscarf, was opposed by the secularists because his presidency would remove any checks on the AKP, whom, they fear, harbors a secret agenda to turn Turkey into an Iranian style theocracy. Members of the AKP dismiss those claims, saying they have moved away from early Islamist roots and pointing to a successful five-year track record in office...
...irony is that the policies of the Islamic AKP are significantly more pro-Western than those promised by its secularist and nationalist rivals. A coalition of the MHP and the CHP may keep head scarves out of the presidential mansion, but it might also put the brakes on European-inspired democratic and economic policies, jeopardize talks to join the E.U., and lead to a clampdown on Turkey's Kurdish minorities. The AKP, if elected, vows to press ahead with additional requirements of E.U. accession, whether or not the Europeans are willing to let Turkey join. The party also promises...