Turkey’s Erdogan Fights Legal Power Battles

Erdogan is viewed with great suspicion by a conservative secularist establishment for his roots in the Islamist movement and faces several legal cases. But he insists the AKP, founded in 2001 from the moderate wing of a banned Islamist party, is a democratic, secularist pro-Western party.
The Constitutional Court met Wednesday to consider a move by the country’s chief prosecutor, Sabih Kanadoglu, to suspend Erdogan’s powers as chairman pending a final ruling on a case to close the party.
Kanadoglu argues that because of his sedition conviction in the 1990s Erdogan was not qualified to be a "founding member" of the AKP when it was created. He thus did not qualify for election then as chairman.
Erdogan could have averted the case by resigning as a "founding member" and as chairman and then entering as a normal member and standing again for the chairmanship. But he argues the prosecutor’s technical arguments are without foundation. The party law under which Kanadoglu is acting has since been changed by parliament in a way that would exonerate Erdogan. It is unclear if that would affect Erdogan’s case retrospectively.
Most analysts expect the court to turn down Kanadoglu’s request for an injunction on Erdogan’s powers and to allow him to remain as party leader. The case is part of a wider action to close down the party because of irregular bureaucratic procedures in its foundation.
That case, following changes in party law, seems unlikely to result in a definitive closure of the AKP. Under former laws dozens of parties have been banned since 1960.