According to news reports published last week, 495 Alevi organizations met for two days and decided they would hold a mini election among their members to decide on the endorsement of parties and candidates in the next general elections. Anyone reading this news may well think that all Alevis in Turkey cast their vote for one party, when in fact that is not the case at all. Among the Alevis, there are leftists, liberals, right-wingers, conservatives and others. Alevis are people who have been an integral part of Turkish society for millennia. Those who hint that Alevis are cut from the same cloth are generally those who want to gain power using this mass of people. Acting as though they have the Alevi vote neatly wrapped up in their pockets, these people hold meetings with political leaders, bargaining over different matters. The truth, however, is that they are never able to elicit the support that they seem to count on in any election. It is because their claims about the Alevi population are exaggerated and also because the Alevis have never agreed to embrace a single political viewpoint. The first Alevi party, founded in 1966, and the last one by businessman Ali Haydar Veziroglu in 1995 ended in failure despite the fact that Veziroglu had begun his party’s activities with a huge budget. Not only that, but he even created his own media storm, appearing frequently on television and sharing news of his party’s activities with the public through his own news agency. The result, however, was a crushing defeat and much disappointment. It showed that the Alevis did not want to hand over their massive backing to just one political party. No matter how much the Alevis may have supported left-leaning parties in the past (most notably the CHP), their general stance toward political party support is connected to the particular issues in a given election year.. .
It used to be that in Turkey people’s particular sect of Islam would be written on their ID cards, and it was from this that statistics could be extracted on the subject. Since 1976, however, there has been no such information provided on ID cards. Thus no one knows precisely the size of the Alevi population in Turkey. Figures provided by some Alevi foundations stating that the population numbers around 25-30 million are far a cry from reality. The great majority of the population in Turkey is made up of Turkish Sunnis. Despite this, though, some still say “There are 30 million Alevis and 30 million Kurds.” “What then, is the total population of Turkey?”
The head of the Alevi-Bektashi Federation spoke to Vatan newspaper, asserting, “There are 25 million Alevis living in Turkey.” This is also the general feeling of the head of the Cem Foundation, Izzetin Dogan. If this were the case, though, the votes coming out of a population of 25-30 million Alevis would have to be at least 7-8 million. And these same 7-8 million votes, according to the results of the last elections, would make up about 25 percent of the total popular vote, which in turn would mean that a hypothetical Alevi party that was able to gather the mass support of the Alevi vote would then be able to single-handedly come to power in Ankara. But if all this were possible, the next logical question then becomes: Why then, with such enormous potential, does someone not form an Alevi party? To take it a step further, if in fact the Alevis have so many problems as a community and since they have the right to political representation, why not flex their muscles with a political party to speak for them. Why don’t they?
The truth of the matter is this: Some people exaggerate the size of the Alevi community in Turkey, and just as the Alevis do not want to be locked into a single political group, they also choose to participate in a pluralistic political system. Those who ignore these facts to instead bargain with politicians over the Alevi vote are not in fact viewing the Alevi community as a whole with a clear view because the Alevis themselves do not view their faith as a political identity but instead as religious culture and a traditional way of life, which in turn is why politicians who shield themselves with the hyperbole of the Alevi vote “promised” them will always find themselves in an empty chute of sorts. Also, it is important to not forget that Alevis see themselves as a part of Turkish society and don’t look kindly upon being treated as “the other,” a stance in which they are clearly justified.
