An Outlook on the Last Election in Turkey

Nevertheless, the real struggle begins only now. The damaging actions of the last AKP government and the absence of a meaningful opposition are not forgotten, and lessons have certainly been learned.

Ulaş Sunata

Alper Acık

Ulaş Sunata

Alper Acık

In the aftermath of the elections in Turkey we share a common sense of relief, as we perceive the events as a great success of the maturing Turkish democracy.

Since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the army has seen its ultimate role as the protector of "Kemalist Ideals", which are commonly summarized by the six principles of republicanism, popularism, secularism, reformism, nationalism, and statism (1).

The military coups and interventions in 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997 (2-5) proved that they would not hesitate to put this role into action, but more importantly these events showed how these ill-defined and old-fashioned ideals were prioritized above democratic and human rights. The last personification of this role was the memorandum of 27 April 2007 (6). We see the outcome of the last election as a blatant denial of this sovereign and authoritative role.

But how is it that people like us, who are the first to distance themselves from any conservative and/or religious view, celebrate the clear win of the AKP (Justice and Development Party, (7)) and the single-party cabinet that Erdogan will appoint? To answer this question, one must consider the alternative outcomes of the election that were discussed widely before 22nd July.

One of the scenarios assumed that the consequences of the memorandum and the so-called "Republic Protests" (8) would be a loss of votes by the AKP, but that they would still maintain their position as the leading party. Such a loss would have led to the need for coalition partners to establish the government.

The only two other parties that were expected to exceed the ridiculous threshold of 10 percent were the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party, (9)) and the CHP (Republican People's Party, (10)), the former being the extreme nationalists and the latter the number one advocate of the protests who embraced the memorandum, leaving only the Kurdish independents as a viable alternative for the AKP.

The history of the frequently interrupted Turkish democracy convinced us that having both Islamists (!) and separatists (!) together in the government would pave the way for a military intervention, if not a coup. The second scenario, where the AKP is excluded from government, would mean a CHP-MHP coalition. Some examples of points of agreement shared by these two parties include not being against the Article 301 (the law about insulting Turkishness that has been so prevalent in the media, especially the Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk trials) (11), considering minorities to be pseudo-citizens, and their role in boosting all forms of aggressive nationalism.

Given the imaginable or unimaginable, but in any case terrible consequences of these two alternative scenarios, we believe the current situation is preferable enough to allow optimism.

But let's have a brief look at what excites us about the outcomes. In the last two years we witnessed the rising of aggressive nationalism, the appearance of the so-called "lynch culture" and a general increase in the number of groups victimized by the othering directed towards ethnic identities, sexual preferences, religious practices and any form of critical opinions toward militarism - Kurds, homosexuals, headscarf wearers and conscientious objectors to name but a few. All of this enforces the extension of the fascist discourse of "traitor".

The peak of this trend, and its most solid example, was the abominable assassination of the Armenian journalist and human-rights activist Hrant Dink.

This terrible event left us with a bitter pessimism, since there was no indication from the powers that be that they would investigate the sociological aspects and hidden factors involved, instead of just providing us with a 17-year-old murderer. We now know that there is at least one person in the parliament, Ufuk Uras (12), a libertarian socialist of the best kind, who sees this mission as one of his priorities.

Furthermore, since the solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey can come about by political means only, the absence of Kurdish representatives in the last parliament was a shame. The ridiculous threshold required to enter the parliament was the main reason for that. However, the success of the other 23 elected independent 'Thousand Hope' candidates - backed by the DTP (Democratic Society Party, (13)) - heralds the return of the Kurdish voice into parliament.

This threshold has effectively prohibited the proper function of representative democracy in Turkey until this last election. In order to exceed the 10% threshold, the independent candidate model became a strategy of the oppressed. Even though we see the election of 24 "Thousand Hope" candidates as only a limited success, the energy emitted by this campaign has, on the one hand, the potential to lead to changes in the new government, and on the other hand, it already gives signs of extra-parliamentary opposition in the near future.

But the most significant democratic success in the face of this threshold is the change in the amount of votes that reached the parliament, which is, obviously, independent of our ideological preferences.

While 45 percent of the votes in the last election were distributed over candidates whose parties didn't reach the threshold, nearly 90 percent of voters in the recent election see their candidates in the parliament. In the context of the parliamentary system, we find this result to be a return to normal for Turkish democracy, with more people confident that their representatives are sitting in the parliament.

Nevertheless, the real struggle begins only now. The damaging actions of the last AKP government and the absence of a meaningful opposition are not forgotten, and lessons have certainly been learned.

The level of nepotism in the AKP, their silence regarding Article 301 related trials, the hypocritical stance they have taken in the case of parliamentary immunity, their incompetence in dealing with the headscarf issue, the last tricks they came up with to hinder independents in reaching parliament, and many more of their policies deserve a serious reaction that was rendered impossible thanks to the CHP's useless opposition.

The reasons given above for our positive interpretation of the election results are also our hope for a new authentic leftist social movement in Turkey to provide a genuine voice of opposition to the AKP government.(AA/US/EÜ)

(1) www2.mkutup.gov.tr

(6) news.bbc.co.uk

(10) en.wikipedia.org

(11) web.amnesty.org

(12) en.wikipedia.org