29 Mart 2009 seçimleri ve AKP: Türkiye’nin siyasal coğrafyası açısından bir değerlendirme

Abstract

This article addresses political and socio-spatial consequences of the local elections in the framework of four main questions: How can election results be evaluated in terms of the party in power, the JDP (Justice and Development Party), which turned the election into a sort of referendum for its policies? Given that the election results indicate a downward trend in the electoral support for the JDP, how could the election results be interpreted as long as we are concerned with the policy positions of three major opposition parties (the Republican People’s Party, the Nationalist Movement Party, and the Party of Democratic Society) in the parliament? Other key questions covered in this article are as follows: Among the opposition parties, which one came to the fore and had an upper hand (And, in that regard, how to interpret the political map of Turkey drawn after the elections?; Was there any relationship between the dropping JDP votes and the social effects of the economic crisis that broke out 5 months before the election?