FOR nine years Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has moved smoothly from one victory to another, winning three elections in a row with a bigger share of the vote each time. He has seen off coup plots by once-omnipotent generals and attempts by their cronies in the judiciary to ban his mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party. So far the economy has survived the financial crisis largely unscathed. And although membership talks with the European Union are stuck, relations with America are (in the words of the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who recently spent five hours with Hillary Clinton) in “a golden age”.
The new philosophy in a bureaucracy once steeped in corruption and sloth is that the state exists to serve the citizen and not the other way round. The old maxim that “the Turk’s only friend is a Turk” has been replaced by growing confidence in Turkey’s regional clout. Mr Erdogan’s rivals are riven by internal feuds. A recent opinion poll suggests that if a new election were held today AK would get 54% of the vote, four points more than in 2011.
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