It's the people, not the AKP, who sent the military to the barracks

If the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had opted to continue the democratic reform process rather than opting for authoritarian rule after 2010, it would have been recalled in the future as a government that left an immensely positive legacy behind. Unfortunately, it has been destroying with its own hands the progressive legacy it had built after over a decade in power.

Still, it will be remembered in the future as the party under whose governance the Turkish military?s role in political life was eradicated.

I could have formulated that sentence as follows: ?The AKP became Turkey?s first party to have the courage to eradicate the military?s role in political life.? I did not do so because I am convinced it was the Turkish people who finally sent the soldiers where they belong.

That being said, it would definitely be wrong to not attribute any credit for this to the AKP government. On the contrary, their role has been central in bringing the military under civilian control. Indeed, the turning point was the AKP?s defiance of the military?s challenge to its rule in 2007. On April 27 of that year, an e-memorandum was posted on the military?s website, threatening the government over its plans to install AKP founder Abdullah Gül as president and arguing that the election of Gül, whose wife wears a headscarf, could undermine Turkey?s secular order.

The AKP did not bow down and decided instead to call early elections, in order to test its power vis-a-vis the military. The election results proved how the military had made a strategic miscalculation, as its e-memorandum certainly contributed to the election victory of the AKP, which even saw a further increase in its votes. Voting behavior was certainly not limited to the...