Nope, president Gul is likely a follower of Fethullah Gulen, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BCle

Nope, president Gul is likely a follower of Fethullah Gulen, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen) a muslim cleric with massive amounts of influence in Turkey and the world. Gulenists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement) and AKP used to be allies, and that's how AKP came to power. I'm surprised at how "clean" his wiki page is and how moderate they make him look. He's a hardcore islamist and is known for taking in helpless children young under the guise of aid and indoctrinating them in his own schools. Like the Muslim equivalent of the missionaries. Gulen schools are known to be rigorous and many of their students then get scholarships to study in the west in Europe and America. Then they serve the "congregation", as it's called. Gulen has gotten a large number of politicians and businessmen under his influence in this way and others. It is also said that as a result of his international efforts, he has significant sway in Central Asia and the Middle East. Recently, they had a falling out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk...) and a crapton of damning confidential phone recordings of higher-ups were released to the public. (Read more here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7439128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7439128 and here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7440964 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7440964) People guess that Gulen and his folks are behind these releases, in a bid to take AKP down. Erdogan realizes that he's out of good moves and the local elections rapidly approach. Our best guess is that this was a reaction to get new audio recordings out of the hands of the public. The recordings have been popping up once every few days, and it's expected that there will be a really big revelation in the next few days leading to the local elections on the 30th. This could really sway the election results and ultimately kick AKP out of power.