Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is chairman of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main opposition party in Turkey.

Many in Washington have been debating whether Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) could be a model for the Arab Spring, as our neighbors in the Middle East aspire to get rid of totalitarian regimes and become true democracies. But the reality in Turkey makes clear that the AKP model does not hold.