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  1. Turkish politics are dominated by four political parties; AKP, CHP, MHP, and HDP. To enter the Turkish parliament, all parties must pass a treshold of 10%, which makes the smaller political parties more or less irrelevant. I will give you some info about the voter bases of these parties.
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  3. AKP has the largest voter base in the country. The party's ideology can be described as "moderate Islamism"; however, they will pander to people who subscribe to other ideologies from time to time to gather votes. The party also has a personality cult that revolves around Erdoğan, and is controlled virtually entirely by him. I would seperate AKP's voters to four main groups.
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  5. The first and the largest group are simply rural, uneducated, and poor people who make up the majority of the Turkish population. Ideologically, these people believe that Islam should influence the politics of the country, though most aren't for full-blown Sharia. Their support for Erdoğan is massive; if tells them that Turkey should be pro-West, they will be pro-West, if he tells them that Turkey should be pro-Russia, they will be pro-Russia. They support Erdoğan not only due to ideological resons, but due to the economic progress Turkey saw under Erdoğan. Admittedly, Erdoğan improved the country's infrastructure and healthcare significantly. While roads and bridges don't mean much to the people who barely leave their cities in the western coast, they meant a lot to those who had to visit the villages they originated from multiple times a year. This group are the ones who will drop him if the economy worsens significantly; however, they will just vote for some other Islamist populist who will promise to fix everything. They get most of their news from pro-AKP media, and thus believe in the most absurd shit imaginable. One of the reasons why it will take a lot of disasters and regression for these people to drop AKP and Erdoğan is because they tend to blame literally everything wrong with the country on foreign powers. AKP voters are constantly accused of being rabid ultranationalists, but most are not very nationalistic; they are pan-Islamists and have an overall positive view of pretty much everyone Muslim, and come from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. They were mostly supportive of the Solution Process. Religious discrimination and secterianism, however, is very common; most view non-Muslims as a "problem", and secretly have negative views of Alevis. The overwhelming majority of them are Sunnis. They are spread all over the country due to the tendency of the rural folk to migrate to larger cities, but their strongholds are Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, and eastern Black Sean coast.
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  7. The second group are similar to the first in many ways, but they are more nationalistic and idealistic. Obsessed with the Ottoman Empire, these people are determined to bring it back, not only to Turkey but to ex-Ottoman countries as well. Often very partisan, and somewhat richer and more educated than the first group, they absolutely worship Erdoğan and will stick with him until the end. Many of the people in this group are ex-MHP voters, and share similarities with some MHP members; however, they don't view ethnic minorities negatively, and overall openly dislike Kamal(pbuh). They are concentrated around the same regions with the previous group, though they have a particularly high presence in eastern Black Sean coast.
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  9. The third group are the hardcore Islamists. These people legitimately sympathize with extremist groups like al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, and would like nothing more than living under Sharia. Often they are associated with various cults. While they are fond enough of Erdoğan, they would actually like AKP to up their scale of Islamism, and are sometimes openly critical of them. Some would establish or vote for other parties if not for the 10% treshold. Some have distinctively Salafist views, and traces of nationalism are very rare among them. Rather, they see Turkey as the last remnant of the once mighty Caliphate, and want it back. I won't bother giving more detail about them, they are just your stereotypical "radical Islamists". Concentrated around Central Anatolia and Eastern Anatolia as well, people who belong to this group are not that common in the Black Sean coast but can be find in significant amounts in the Southeast Anatolia.
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  11. The fourth group, who are fortunately nearly extinct, were upper-class liberals who were tired of Turkey's somewhat authoritarian republicanism, and thought that AKP would be an inclusive party. That's right; some people here genuinely thought that AKP would liberalize Turkey at some point. AKP had done a lote of propaganda about how Turkey's religious folk and ethnic minorities were oppressed under Kamalist rule, and some bleeding-heart liberals became approving of some of AKP's policies which at that time appeared to be liberalizing Turkey. I myself was not very fond of Turkey's republicans either, but seeing as a genuine libertarianism is pretty much alien to most people living here and can't receive wide public support, I saw Kamalists as a safe alternative to Islamists who were sure to snap and fuck the country up at some point; a lot of people thought like me, and tried to inform them about the dangers of giving Islamists more power, but unfortunately they didn't listen. Most have realized their mistakes by now. Now I will get to why these liberal people were annoyed by the republicans.
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  13. I would say the first group make up well around 60% of AKP voters, while the second and the third make up around 20% each, and the last one makes up a negligable percentage.
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  15. So let's come to CHP. CHP's voter base are actually ideologically very divided among themselves. Most AKP voters are more or less similar to eachother when it comes to ideology, but you can see some CHP voters being legit hostile to eachother on occasions. I would divide them to three main groups.
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  17. The first one are the people we refer to as "ulusalcılar" here, which literally means "nationalists". However, different words are used to describe typical MHP voters; "milliyetçiler", which is synonymous with ulusalcılar, or "ülkücüler", which means "ideologists". These people are actually not secularists, but laicists; not only do they believe that state affairs shouldn't be influenced by religious matters, but they also believe that the state should regulate religious institutions. While they look libertarian next to Islamists, they are by no means libertarian compared to Westerners. Most believe that it should be illegal to insult Kamal, and many believe that no one should be even allowed to criticize him; these people have created a religion around Kamal, and see everything he has ever done as perfect. They are obviously very nationalistic; the very idea of letting an ethnic group secede away is unthinkable to them, and some are still for the suppression of the Kurdish culture and identity. People think that secularist Turks would gang up with separatist Kurds against the Islamists in case of a civil war, but what would actually happen is that secularist Turks would gang up with the Islamists against the separatist Kurds even if they knew that it would result in their eventual defeat. Most are also not pro-West; you can see them believe in crazy conspiracy theories as well. They will also claim to be irreligious Muslims even though most of them don't only not practice but also know nothing about Islam; some seriously claim that headscarves are not a part of Islam and were invented by Israel to make Muslim women dumber by denying them sunlight. Economically, they are centrists, and particularly opposed to privatization. Overall they appear pretty similar to typical MHP voters; however, there are many cultural if not political differences between them. These people are overall "Western"; they are generally culturally and politically much less restrictive than MHP voters, and don't seem to care much about what people do on their own(if you don't count their problems with free speech). Whereas MHP voters want laws that would, in their opinion, improve and more importantly "elevate" the status of Turks, and would uphold the values of the Turkish culture. If you oversimplify it, you can say that "ulusalcılar" are "ülkücüler" who are simply culturally more Western, less authoritarian, and less religious. Finally, these people do not seem to care much about ethnicity, so long as ethnic minorities are integrated; a Kurd who has adopted their values would be accepted among them whereas an ethnic Turk who is "Eastern" would still be loathed by them. While there are very few Kurds in this group you can find other minorities, with Circassians somewhat overrepresented. Their strongholds are the Aegean coast, Thrace, and some pockets around the coasts of the Sea of Marmara and western Black Sea. Secterianism is extremely rare; most are irreligious Sunnis with a fair bit of Alevis. They come from all economic classes, but overall are more upper-class compared to voters of other parties. They used to have a large presence in the military until they were purged by Erdoğan and Gülen. They are also pretty old overall.
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  19. The second group are social democrats. While some of these people may not be as "progressive" as Western social democrats, they are still pretty much the least authoritarian large group in Turkey. Most of these people are still overall somewhat nationalistic, and revere Kamal. While there are those who are somewhat sympathetic to the PKK's struggle, most of them view it as a problem. So basically imagine watered-down social Western democrats. Many think that the PKK issue should be solved diplomatically, and the rights of Kurds in Turkey should be improved; but most are much more concerned with the rise of Islamism in Turkey. PKK is viewed as somewhat a side-issue by them, and they are willing to co-operate with HDP against the AKP. The MHP as well. Overall they try to be inclusive, applying to everyone; what differs them from the liberals who once were supportive of the AKP is that they know not to trust Islamists. Most are secularists, not laicists, and would be willing to improve the rights of the religious people if they were sure it wouldn't backfire. They are also generally pro-West, and still want to join the EU. Typically they are younger, upper to middle class people, of various ethnic groups. Arabs are somewhat underrepresented, Kurds have a small presence, and Balkanians are overrepresented. Most are irreligious, and many are atheists; background-wise they tend to be more Sunni than Alevi. Their strongholds are the Aegean coast and Thrace.
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  21. The third group are Alevis that are overall conservative but still vote for CHP because they are afraid of discrimination under an Islamist government. Alevis do not tend to be particularly upper-class or educated compared to the rest of the population; in fact they produce a lot of socialists. Many Alevis are actually culturally more conservative than the typical non-religious Sunnis that dominate the western coasts(but still less conservative than most Sunnis). However, historically they were persecuted under Ottomans, and the prospect of Islamists ruling the country terrifies them. AKP for example started a propaganda campaign to gather Alevi votes a few years ago; focusing on a rebellion by Alevi tribes who didn't accept the centralized rule of the Turkish Republic, which was crushed brutally, Erdoğan tried to antagonize Alevis towards Kamalists, but they would have none of it. Today, most Alevis regardless of their political ideas vote for CHP, because they simply don't want Islamists in charge. Alawites and other Shia are also in this group. Most Alevis are ethnic Turks, but there are some Zazas and Kurds among them; Alawites are almost entirely Arabs. They are centered in Central to Eastern Anatolia, which are generally AKP strongholds, and they are responsible for whatever votes CHP still gets from those places; Alawites live mostly in Hatay.
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  23. I think all three groups make up around a third of the CHP's voter base.
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  25. Let's come to MHP, whose voter base probably produce the highest amount of hilarity of all other voter bases.
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  27. The first group, who are usually called "ülkücüler" or better known abroad as "Gray Wolves", are the most dominant and stereotypical group among all MHP voters. I explained some of their characteristics previously but I will give some more detail. These people believe that Turks are the greatest nation ever and must be elevated above all others no matter what, and think that the state should actively contribute to this process. Long story short they are literal fascists, and I really hate using this term. Extremely militaristic, they naturally have some presence in the military. While they are culturally conservative people, they don't label themselves as "Islamists"; that is because they worship everything about Turkey, and that includes Kamal. So while they have semi-Islamist tendencies they aren't as bad as AKP voters. Despite all they value Turkishness over Muslimness. Their obsession an designated enemies are ethnic minorities; mostly Kurds. While some of them will deny this they are anti-everything Kurdish, and some of them legit think that "the rise of Kurdish birth rates must be stopped". According to them PKK is the biggest problem Turkey is facing and 100% of our available efforts should be concentrated on defeating them. Because of this they are willing to co-operate with literally anyone(there were Gray Wolves who were legit sympathetic to IS at some point), and many of them are now sympathetic to Erdoğan(who once said that his party "had taken all sorts of nationalism under their feet" and started a reconcilation process with the PKK a few years ago) due to his revival of the fighting against the PKK. They view even Iraqi Kurdistan negatively. Also they want to heavily strengthen Turkey's ties with other Turkic countries. Most are Sunnis, and Alevis who vote for MHP are rare but there. On some occasions these guys can show secterianism.
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  29. The second are mostly the same with the first, however they tend to put more importance on Islamism. Many are either a little critical of Kamal or will delude themselves and eacother into believing that he was an Islamist of sorts. They are somewhat more accepting of ethnic minorities, and less accepting of Alevis. In case you haven't noticed they tend to overlap with the second AKP group. In fact many of them will pretend to belong to this group, but secretly support AKP.
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  31. These two groups are spread all over the country except the Kurdish-majority areas, with a heavy presence in typically pro-AKP areas, especially those that are geographically close to Kurdish-majority areas.
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  33. The last MHP-voting group are Turanists. While all MHP voters will claim to be Turanists, I am using it to specifically refer to this group. These people are similar to the Gray Wolves in most ways, however, they are not Islamic. They see it as foreign and Arabic, and while many of them are nominally Muslims, they usually see it as something cultural. Many believe that a revival of Tengrism should take place. Overall they can be somewhat less authoritarian than other MHP voters. However, their stance on Kurds and other minorities is typically the same; in fact, occasionally it can be even worse, and you can find Turanists who openly call for the genocide of Kurds. They revere Kamal, and view his reforms as returning to original Turkic customs instead of a process of "Westernization". Sometimes they overlap with the ulusalcılar. Some people who are actually politically closer to the first or second group will pretend to belong to this group, because it makes them look "cooler". Lately even this group is starting to view AKP a little sympathetically, due to their fight against the PKK. An union that would include other Turkic countries is on their priorities. Typically they come from cities on the Western coast, and they are generally much younger than any other group in Turkey. Also pretty vocal for their size, especially on the internet.
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  35. I'd say half of the MHP's voter base belongs to the first group, and 30% or so to the second, with Turanists making up around 20%.
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  38. Finally we come to HDP.
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  40. The first group to vote for HDP are just Apoist Kurds, who support the PKK and vote for HDP due to HDP's links with the PKK.
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  42. The second group make up the vast majority of HDP's voter base. These Kurds are typically not outright supportive of the PKK but view them sympathetically due to nationalistic reasons. They have not forgotten the conflicts they went through against the Turkish state, and the discrimination some Kurds faced under the Turkish rule. They feel threatened by the lack of political representation they had until some years ago, as well as the recent hostilities between HDP and AKP. They were actually sympathetic towards the AKP until the Siege of Kobane, back when the Solution Process was ongoing. HDP's chairman had not approved of the transition to the presidential system, and Erdoğan thought it was a good idea to blackmail him by letting IS fuck up the YPG, but it backfired and only increased the popular support of the HDP. Thus they vote for HDP, out of fear of repression. While you hear about how Kurds are all progressive feminists on the internet, and HDP appear to be a leftist party, most of their voters are actually very conservative people; polls show that only 54% of them think that the state should be secular(keep in mind that people here simply mean "I don't want Sharia" when they say "I am secular"). Which is why HDP tune down their seemingly leftist rhetoric in regions with Kurdish majorities. Naturally they are very hostile to MHP voters as well as some CHP and AKP voters.
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  44. Finally you have social democrats, non-Kurdish leftists, and all sorts of SJWs who vote for them. Generally these people are similar to CHP-voting social democats, but lean a little more towards the left and are more sympathetic to the PKK, and believe that HDP will be an inclusive democratic party.
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  46. Most of HDP voters belong to the second group, with the first making up like a quarter, the last making up a very smal amount.
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