Old Establishment’s Islamist leader Mr. Erbakan dies at 85.

I could probably be more sympathetic if Necmettin Erbakan did not prevent Numan Kurtulmuş‘ ascendancy at Saadet Party despite his old age and illness. But he did his best to stop Mr. Kurtulmuş who could provide a marginal but substantive political standing. What Mr. Erbakan did in fact to assume his own leadership in order to transfer party chair to his son. Erbakan did consolidate, formulated and contained Political Islamist tendencies in Turkey. Only after his grasp was broken in 28 February coup d’etat, Tayyip Erdoğan and his friends could create an inclusive and mainstream political formula that would stun the secularist establishment. Mr. Erbakan was so idiosnycratic and marginal in his discourses that this would play for the demonisation needed by secularist elites. Probably, his death is lamented more by those older elites than by newcomers…

before his death, he was involved in his party’s administration until the very last moment…

a photo selection here.

Five parties, Mr. Erbakan formed until now…

Necmettin Erbakan, Turkish former PM, dies at 85

Necmettin Erbakan served a year as prime minister before he was pressured by the secular military to step down in 1997

Necmettin Erbakan, a longtime leader of Turkey’s Islamic political movement and briefly the prime minister in the first Islamic-led coalition in the country’s modern history, died on Sunday aged 85.

When he was younger…

a list of Erbakan’s provocative statemenst (in Turkish) here.

Erbakan and his challenged legacy