​Earthquake in AKP

TURKEY - In Brief 03 May 2016 by Atilla Yesilada

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In our recently published Quarterly Report, I predicted that political risks might begin to be discounted by markets as early as by June or July. One of these risks was the growing rift between president Erdogan and PM Davutoglu. Developments on Friday and over the weekend might possibly expedite a power struggle in AKP, which is why I chose to pen this update. On Friday, AKP’s Central Administrative Committee (CAC) decided to withhold the authority to appoint and dismiss provincial chairpersons from Davutoglu, which has been exercised by the chairman of the party since 2002. Even though Davutoglu himself signed the minutes, background information suggests he pleaded with Erdogan until the last minute to convince pro-Erdogan members of the CAC from bringing up this item on the agenda. The opposition press claims that Erdogan was alarmed by intelligence that the National Intelligence Agency, the Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Corps were slowly gravitating to the sphere of Davutoglu’s influence, and saw the need to discipline him. On Sunday, an anonymous writer posted a blog to Internet titled “ the Pelican File” claiming Davutoglu intended to topple Erdogan the day he was elected party head and PM. The obscure IP address was immediately shared in the social media by pro-Erdogan names, making it to “trending” list of Turkish twitter and creating a media storm of speculation. By Tuesday, neither the Davutoglu, nor the Erdogan camp had made any attempts to deny the contents of the file. By Monday night, anonymous names posted another file titled “the Sakarya Files” to Internet, accusing pro-Erdogan AKP mayors of graft. By Tuesday, even the pro-AKP press was debating the ...