Former Islamists consolidate their rule.

The week's news at a glance.

Turkey

“Democracy has won a victory,” said Cengiz Candar in the Ankara Turkish Daily News. The landslide win by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which took nearly half the vote in last weekend’s parliamentary elections, was primarily a reaction against the military’s attempt at intervention. The resolutely secular military didn’t trust the AKP because of the party’s Islamist past. When the AKP earlier this year nominated one of its members, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, to be president—a largely ceremonial position elected by parliament—the generals spoke up. They put out a memorandum warning that the military would “step in” if necessary to protect the secular state against an “Islamist” takeover of both parliament and presidency. The voters, though, saw the military’s meddling as anti-democratic. Before the memo was released, the AKP had the support of less than 30 percent of the electorate. At the ballot box last week, it took a historic 47 percent.

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