Campaign Of Fear Returns Erdogan's AKP To Power

In the AKP's party headquarters in Istanbul, supporters mingled among camera crews and officials as the results gradually filtered in on the television projector screens.

Percentage point by percentage point, region by region, their cheers got louder.

As their confidence grew, the volume of the party anthems blaring from speakers ratcheted up.

Organisers quickly emerged with arms full of party flags, distributing them among the crowds who waved them furiously without any need for persuasion or direction.

Even the most ardent supporters, let alone the opinion polls, had not predicted so convincing a win – but they wasted no time in grasping it.

What a difference five months make.

Back in June in that very same hall I saw the faces of the AKP's supporters go from concerned to defeated, as they watched their party lose the governing majority it had enjoyed for more than a decade.

There was no music that time, no parties spilling out onto the streets, no convoys of cars with horns sounding or chanting youths clutching flares.

In June, it was the supporters of the pro-Kurdish HDP doing the celebrating – winning seats in the parliament for the first time and transforming the political landscape in the process.

The HDP success then was propelled by the support of Turks from across the political spectrum, drawn in by their message of secular, inclusive politics – seen as a check on the growing authoritarianism of President Erdogan and the AKP.

So what's changed?

The focus of the June elections was the ambition of the AKP to win a big enough majority to attempt to change the constitution and grant a raft of executive powers to President Erdogan.

The loss of its governing majority was seen as a bruising rejection of those plans.

But this time around, the AKP has made the focus of its campaign the instability and uncertainty Turkey has faced as a result of the outcome of the June elections.

The party has blamed the deadly suicide attacks by Islamic State and the violent collapse of the ceasefire agreement with PKK Kurdish militants, on the absence of strong leadership.

In simple terms, the message has been "if you vote inconclusively, you vote for coalition, and this is what you get… you have a chance to right that wrong".

The result has seen the HDP barely pass the electoral threshold, and the far-right MHP party who rejected a possible coalition with the AKP sees its share of the vote plunge.

Opposition parties have expressed their outrage at the scare tactics the AKP used, accusing them of a conducting a smear campaign alongside the aggressive closure of media outlets critical of the government.

But in the immediate aftermath of the results, they appear to have accepted them with a grim resignation.

Few had predicted so conclusive a victory for the AKP. The question of how the opposition reacts in the months ahead, will depend on how President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu define the "stability" they have promised.