TURKEY HEADING FOR A SHOWDOWN BETWEEN CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY AND ISLAM

MICHAEL RUBIN/MEF:

Sometime this summer, Turkey's Constitutional Court will decide whether Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) violated the "principles of a democratic and secular republic" that undergird the Turkish constitution and should be barred from politics.

Across the Turkish political spectrum, most officials expect the Court to rule against the AKP, thus dissolving the party and banning Erdoğan and his closest aides for at least five years.

Although the prime minister, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, and influential AKP advisers have tried to depict this as the unjust outgrowth of a dispute over headscarves in public universities—and perhaps even a "judicial coup"—the case is legitimate.

... Contrary to AKP claims, this summer's Court decision will not mark the end of Turkish democracy, but rather its rebirth.

RTWT.