Kadri Gursel writes: The 49.4% of the vote the Justice and Development Party (AKP) got in the Nov. 1 elections beat all forecasts, astonishing not only Turkey and the world but the party’s own quarters as well. How the AKP was able to boost its vote by a fifth in only five months after losing its parliamentary majority with 40.8% in June is now an imperative question.

With an outcome of such an extraordinary nature, the AKP — a party supposed to have fatigued and lost some appeal after 13 years in power — must have resolved some major problem in Turkey in five months’ time or convinced part of the electorate that only the AKP could resolve that problem.

And what is this problem? For an accurate diagnosis, one needs to compare the two different Turkeys that existed ahead of the June 7 and Nov. 1 elections. There was only one new problem that emerged after June 7: the resumption of bloody clashes with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and suicide bombings blamed on the Islamic State (IS). [Continue reading…]