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Notes -
Are there any Gulenists left in Turkish politics? Last time I was paying attention (IIRC around 2012), it sounded like the key battle-lines were Erdogan vs. the Gulenists with the Kemalists basically out of contention, but it sounds like Kılıçdaroğlu is a Kemalist straight out of central casting.
Nope they got purged the fuck out. There weren’t many to begin with. They were just very powerful in media judiciary education and bureaucracy since they acted as Erdoğan’s intellectual shock troops to take over complex institutions. Islamist movement has very low human capital so this is something they always struggled it. When they were purged they were replaced either with some sections of the old Kemalist guard or people from party patronage networks.
The label Kemalist lost its meaning other than “broadly secular” at this point. There isn’t anyone significant who would like a return to the rule of NATO aligned heavily statist army-bureaucracy network which is what Kemalism used to mean in the 2000s.
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