HotNewsTurkey Staff
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ekim 26, 2008 15:12
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) vowed to quit politics if support for the party falls sharply in the March 2009 local elections, according to the reasoning of closure case, Hurriyet daily wrote on Sunday. (UPDATED)
"We did not come to power by force. We do not say that we will not quit if we lose (the elections). We did not win everywhere in Turkey... If an inexplicable drop occurs, then it is not consistent with the nature of democracy that you still stay in power. It brings political debate," Hurriyet quoted the Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek as saying in the party's verbal defense submitted to the constitutional court in the closure case.
Support to the ruling AKP reached a record-high in the June 2007 general elections, in which the party was re-elected with a 47 percent majority.
Cicek's remarks came to the fore after the publication of the reasoning in the closure case against the ruling AKP in the Official Gazette.
Turkey's Constitutional Court ruled to reject demands to ban the AKP in its critical ruling at the end of July, but deprived the party of the financial assistance that it would receive from the state and issued a serious warning for the AKP for being "focal point of anti-secular activities".
