The AKP sees the military, judiciary and state bureaucracy as the last bastion of conservative secularism.
If instead the AKP stayed in power, that would bring Islamists closer to the mainstream.
In less than 10 years, the AKP regime has dismantled Turkey's strategic alliance with Israel.
But a senior party member of the AKP, Bekir Bozdag, said the court had overstepped its jurisdiction.
The AKP holds onto to power by delivering consistent economic growth, approaching 10% per year, through market-based reforms.
Yet just as in the AKP case, much of the prosecution's argument rests on words rather than deeds.
However, one notable change included the removal of Erdogan's interior minister from one of the AKP's top leadership councils.
When in 2003 the AKP-dominated Turkish parliament prohibited US forces from invading Iraq through Kurdistan, the US blamed itself.
The blueprint was drawn up after the AKP was returned to power for a second five-year term in July 2007.
Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin's hawkish stance towards Turkey's long-simmering Kurdish conflict has sparked controversy both within the AKP and throughout Turkey.
"Solving the problem and ending the war would be seen as a positive step for the AKP's election prospects, " Ms Kaya says.
The AKP won the 2002 elections and has since been reelected twice.
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The AKP was handsomely re-elected in 2007 with an increased share of the popular vote, albeit with a reduced parliamentary majority.
This has raised some concerns within Europe that the AKP government is struggling to give renewed momentum to Turkey's EU membership negotiations.
President Abdullah Gul, of the AKP, signed it on 13 May 2010.
The AKP says the reforms will pave the way for a reorganisation of the high courts and help meet requirements for EU membership.
Erkan Mumcu, a former AKP minister who now heads the center-right Motherland Party, accused the AKP in June of interfering in Central Bank operations.
In May 2005, AKP Parliamentary Speaker B?lent Arin? warned that the AKP might abolish the constitutional court if its judges continued to hamper its legislation.
Governing competently and overseeing an unprecedented economic boom, the AKP saw its share of the electorate grow from one-third in 2002 to one-half in 2011.
The first came last autumn when the AKP was trying to patch together a new constitution to replace the one written by the generals in the 1980s.
Feeling its oats, the AKP abandoned Washington's protective umbrella and struck out on an independent neo-Ottoman course, aiming to be a regional power as in centuries past.
Indeed, since the AKP rose to power in 2002, it has distanced Turkey from both Israel and the US while warming Turkish relations with Iran and Syria.
And yet the AKP may not be entirely immune to what pundits refer to as "the 10-year rule", or the sort of atrophy which affects governments as they grow old.
While recent opinion polls continue to show Mr. Erdogan retaining a strong lead over Turkey's opposition, some pollsters have noted that Turkish society has become more polarized under the AKP government.
By forcing Turkey to curb its military's role as the guarantor of Turkish secularism, the EU took away the secularists' last line of defense against the rising tide of the AKP.
The AKP's internal constitution was amended during the party congress to allow parliamentarians who have already served three terms -- such as Erdogan -- to be re-elected after sitting out an election cycle.
With one of the government's main stated objectives being to advance Turkey's EU membership bid, both the AKP and MHP presented the proposed easing of the headscarf ban as an issue of civil and religious freedom.
But even if the AKP's rise to power was eminently predictable, its ability to consolidate its control over just about every organ of governance in Turkey as well as what was once a thriving free press, and change completely Turkey's strategic posture in just seven years was far from inevitable.
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