Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In present-day Turkey, the divide between traditional Muslims and secular Westerners is quite active. This can be seen in Figure 6-18, which maps support for the country’s three leading political parties in the general election of 2015. The AKP (Justice and Development Party) holds a narrow parliamentary majority, has been the governing party since 2002, and is led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan; it is a conservative Muslim party, with its power base located in the rural provinces of central Turkey. The CHP is the secular Republican People’s Party that was founded by Atatürk in 1923; its support is based in several pockets of western Turkey that lie close to Europe. The HDP is the People’s Democratic Party, dominated by Kurds in the southeastern margin of the country, and emphasizes equal rights for minorities. These internal divisions dramatically surfaced in July 2016, when a faction of the military attempted (and failed) to ignite a coup d’état to overthrow the government. This rebellion was largely aimed at President Erdogan, whom they (and others) criticize for his increasingly autocratic behavior and appeasement of conservative Islamic groups." [Geography: Realms, Regions and Concepts,17th Ed., p. 266]