In the current Turkish parliamentary system, you do not necessarily work hard to become a deputy. Rather, getting along well with the leader puts you in an excellent position to be selected as a candidate. You may even be selected to represent a region whose demographic makes you a shoe-in, no matter your actual place of residence. Incredible isn't it? How can one expect the Turkish Parliament, a majority of which is composed of individuals who have not gone through the difficulties of obtaining a seat in the parliament to defend democracy?
Unfortunately, the military-backed 1982 Constitution, which has had one-third of its total body amended over time, is the main stumbling block in the way of furthering democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
The spirit of this constitution heavily influenced political party laws, the very ones that currently determine the electoral procedures. It is this document that is at the core of preventing those who lack support by the party elites from gaining office.
A preliminary election system in almost every province was compulsory under the previous system, allowing those who commanded popular support to win regardless of the decisions of an exclusive circle of party members.
This allowed the delegates of each province to decide on their candidates, who often had long histories in local politics, before those candidates could run in elections for parliament.
This system had its own weaknesses but it was never as bad as today's election system mentality, which has turned the party leaders a single authority, eliminating the concept of loyalty to the people and to the country.
The late father of this writer served as a deputy and as a member of the now defunct Senate after the 1980 coup for almost 25 years in the parliament on the current main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Adana ticket.
His entire life was devoted to the hard work of politics with the main motive of his effort to become a deputy being the pure desire to serve to his nation on the parliamentary level. Most of his time was spent in the Adana region for election campaigns trying to prove himself to the electorate, seeking his mandate from the people rather than the party leaders.
Whereas, today, for example, a merger between the CHP and the Democratic Left Party (DSP), has centered on bargains over the number of candidates that the CHP leadership could select from the DSP, who will run in the elections under the CHP umbrella.
During the whole bargaining process we have not heard any messages that an alliance in the left has a goal of furthering democracy, it has concentrated only on the number of deputies to be selected.
There was, though, one welcome voice of dissent that came from within the CHP. CHP Ankara deputy Mehmet Tomanbay, speaking to the ANKA news agency yesterday stated that instead of setting up unity on the left, the merger was seeking a way out with retired names from the right and with some famous names that will have difficulty finding solutions to Turkey's problems.
On the right spectrum of politics too, the proposed merger of the center-right Motherland Party (ANAVATAN) and the True Path Party (DYP) has collapsed, boosting the ruling AK Party's chances of retaining power.
The formulation of the deputy candidate-lists mainly were the main cause of failure for the center-right merger. ANAVATAN leader Erkan Mumcu rightly and fiercely opposed former Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz's possible candidacy from the center-right list. Yılmaz was responsible for the failure of his party to win in the 2002 elections while he himself was being tried at High Court for corruption charges.
The current situation, with leftist and the rightist parties failing to create meaningful alternative policies, does not give much hope for furthering democracy in Turkey, playing into the hands of some sectors of the state that benefit from a Turkey engulfed in serious economic, social and political problems.
Paradoxically, it has been this parliament under the majority of the AK Party that adopted in the past years several reforms that will bring Turkey closer to the democratic values of Europe. But the failure of those reforms felt on ground tell us once again that the current election system should change to create a parliament that has already absorbed the reforms and can be a pioneer in their implementation.
