The AKP's strange bedfellows
When Dogu Perincek, the leader of the ultra-left and ultranationalist Patriotic Party, announces a "united front" with Turkey's ruling AKP, one should see why.
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power now for more than 13 years, has garnered for itself a wide array of opponents along with a wide array of supporters. A new name in the latter group, however, is quite unusual and surprising even by Turkish standards, for he used to be a fierce enemy of the AKP for a very long time. He is Dogu Perincek, the leader of the ultra-left and ultranationalist Patriotic Party.
Perincek, who may be largely unknown to the outside world, has always been a marginal yet famous figure in Turkish politics. He made a name for himself in the '70s as the leader of the Turkish "Maoist" movement, which was at odds with not just the anti-communist right but also the "Leninist" faction of the left. In the early '80s, he seemed to support the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) out of Marxist solidarity. Gradually, however, Perincek and his political movement, along with their provocative periodical, Aydinlik, tilted toward Kemalism, emphasizing the nationalist, secularist and "anti-imperialist" aspect of Turkey's founding ideology.
