The parliamentary elections in Turkey were a momentous event for a variety of reasons. The ruling AKP that has its roots in Turkey's Islamist movement and is the inheritor of a long line of Islamist parties has won in a landslide. For a causal Western observer reading ever simplistic reporting in the media, this can be cause for concern to the extent that this might mean a sad loss for secularism. But I see no reason to withhold the analytical tools we use for any other democratic election when analyzing those in Turkey. Therefore, the starting point ought to be that the elections in Turkey were not about the future of secularism in the country.

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