It’s the people’s turn to speak!” received 52.6 percent of the vote, putting an end to the 27-year single-party era of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). It retained its power in the elections held four years later on May 2, 1954. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) got 34.3 percent of the vote in the Nov. 3, 2002 elections, and the margin of its votes in the July 22, 2007 elections is 46.6 percent. While the DP increased its votes by 5 percent in the second election it entered, the AK Party increased its votes by 12 percent in its second election. There should be a plausible and comprehensible explanation for the success of the AK Party in the July 22 elections. In my opinion, one of the two chief factors that played a role in AK Party success is of course the improvements it has realized during its four-and-a-half years in power. The other is the failure of the opposition parties and the tense relationship the political and bureaucratic systems maintain with democracy. If we are to make a rough estimate, I would say that the direct impact of the party’s successful acts is 35 percent and the attitude of the opposition parties and the bureaucratic system are 65 percent responsible for the success of the AK Party. Therefore, according to my observations, the three key terms that played major roles in the July 22 election are “anger, fear and hope.”
Nearly half of the voters harbored anger against the postmodern e-memo issued on the Web site of the General Staff at midnight on April 27, the situation created in the presidential election and of course against the condition of 367 based on an extremely discretional interpretation of the Constitution. Their anger against the unnatural interventions in politics and democracy was reflected within established democratic norms.
The second factor that played a significant role in voter preference was the fear of a possible incursion into northern Iraq pushed by the CHP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). We should also count the terrorist acts that escalated in the last three months. Many observers thought that the increasing acts of domestic terrorism were related to the elections and the AK Party government. The issue of a possible intervention in northern Iraq being forcibly maintained in the limelight with the pretext of the escalating terrorism suggested the question of “Are some people trying to drag Turkey into the Iraq quagmire?” A majority of society doesn’t approve of any incursion into northern Iraq or Iraq. Just the opposite, they are seriously worried that such an incursion may well drag Turkey into the whirlpool of great tragedies that have been suffered in Iraq since 2003. The AK Party bluntly stated that it did not favor such an intervention, and this in turn generated a very positive effect on the Kurdish vote.
In this election, an overwhelming majority of Kurdish voters preferred the AK Party. In the 2002 elections, the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) received 6.2 percent of the vote, the highest that ever be garnered by a Kurdish party, and it was inclusive of only 25 percent of all Kurdish voters. In this election, the rate received by independent Kurdish candidates on behalf of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) is approximately 4 percent. The other 1.2 percent went to non-Kurdish independent candidates who ran all over Turkey.
We said that the third key term that played a significant role in the elections is “hope.” It’s possible to conclude that it represents an “expectation” in regard to the period ahead of us. The expectation concerns the improvement of income distribution, the setting aside of resources for the poverty-stricken segments of society and the improvement of the status of those with small means. The second expectation is about fundamental rights and liberties. In the four-and-a-half years we have just left behind, no significant improvements were made in the lives of the religious majority; problems such as the headscarf issue and the religious imam-hatip schools were not resolved. The vast majority kept quiet; it did not express its troubles even during the election campaigns. However, it expressed its expectations and hopes in the ballot box.
