AKP took office in 2002 with the promises to consolidate democracy, institutionalize the rule of law and deepen respect for human rights. After a period of reforms on the path to EU membership, the party has turned against its own success. Why has the AKP changed and gone authoritarian? How Turkey drifted from being a ‘model country’ that reconciles Islam with democracy to a country of political chaos and civil strife? What went wrong in Turkey?   Is Turkey under the AKP rule a case for illiberal democracy or a post‐modern authoritarianism with Islamic references? Can Turkey’s de‐democratization be stopped? This is the story of the Islamists who failed to be democrats.