2011 elections in Turkey and the radical break in the republican people's party: Outcomes of the intra-party democratization

The Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) is the oldest party in the Turkish Republican history. Since its foundation in 1923, it has been subject to harsh critiques about its traditionally insufficient intra-party democratization. However, today’s RPP is going through a radical transformation both in the candidate selection processes and in its aim to enlarge its electorate within minority groups. Deputy candidate selection within smaller cities for the last general elections in 2011 is based on the elections by the party delegates. Although this democratization process has been seen as a positive step, the selections of the deputy candidates within larger cities directly by the party center created discontent among a certain strata. Also there were questions about why the selections were not based on the elections of the party members but the delegates. On the other hand, the new “expansions” like the “ethnic” expansion or “headscarf” expansion within the party politics aimed at enlarging the electoral base. This situation is also considered as the sign of a radical break within the history of RPP since the party was always skeptical about mentioning religious and ethnic minority groups within the party program. For some, this was finally the transformation of the party into a democratic representation of all the groups within the Turkish society. But for others, these expansions are considered as “deflection” from the traditional party orientation. RPP’s loyal electoral strata which consists the statist-elitist groups has been for a while discontent because of this “deflection”. This research focuses on the outcomes of the intra-party democratization processes within RPP in terms of how they affect the intra-party cohesion and the opinions of the electorate.