Erdogan's Secret to Success

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won yet another election victory in Monday's municipal elections. While the results saw a five percent decline in support for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) over the 2011 parliamentary elections, it was also a 6 percent improvement over the AKP's results since the last municipal elections in 2009. Erdoğan's party will continue to control the metropolitan municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara (although the Ankara results are disputed and may yet be reversed), and it won a few new major cities such as Antalya, an important tourist destination on the Mediterranean. What makes this victory even more significant is that it came in the aftermath of several setbacks for the AKP: the Gezi Park protests, a corruption and graft investigation against a group that included ministers' family members, and a torrent of wiretaps that embarrassed the prime minister, his sons, his ministers, and businessmen close to him.