The Justice and Development (AK) party has won three general elections in a row, most recently in 2011. Yet although it seems certain to win over 40% of the vote and remain the largest party after the election on June 7th, it is losing ground. Many things that helped ak are being reversed. The economy, its strongest suit, has run out of steam. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ak's charismatic former prime minister, who became Turkey's first directly elected president in August, has become increasingly despotic and out of touch. And some opposition parties now look more appealing. The main centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP) has changed tack. Its leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has ditched his shrilly anti-Erdogan rhetoric of old and is hitting ak hard on the economy. His pledges to double the minimum wage and to improve the lot of some urn pensioners may sound populist, yet they have resonance. Two-thirds of chp candidates were elected in primaries. And Mr Kilicdaroglu has managed to bring in female candidates such as Selina Dogan, an ethnic Armenian lawyer, and Selin Sayek Boke, a respected Arab Christian economist. Ultra-secular dinosaurs have gone.
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