They had been convulsing with pain for days as the national will was not expressed the way they had expected. They insulted the people and decided to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere in the country by waiting for a reception to be attended by the chief of General Staff, to whom they would ask questions to stir up conflict. They did not ask the chief of General Stuff how he assessed the election results. Asked this way, their question would most probably have been left unanswered.
Instead, they asked this: “Is the statement you made on April 12 and the memorandum of April 27 still valid? Did the election results urge you to make a fresh assessment?”
And acting like an officer or a politician, they also asked, “Would it be possible to give an answer such as, ‘No, it is not. Yesterday is yesterday, and today is today’?”
In response to this carefully thought-out question, Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt said:
“The views of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) don’t change daily. We are behind the things we said on April 12. Besides, the things we said did not contain anything abnormal. The statement was inclusive of things known by everybody. We are behind whatever we have said so far. We made those statements faithfully and knowingly. However, we have come here to celebrate the KKTC Armed Forces Day. You will not hear any words from my mouth tonight except about Cyprus.”
In this statement, they found the justification they had been desperately seeking. And then came the headlines: “Military opposes Gül’s presidential candidacy.”
During his press conference on April 12, Büyükanıt had said, “We want a president who is loyal to the values of the republic in essence, not in words.” Since Gül’s wife wears a headscarf, she could never become “as loyal in essence as they want.” And in the meantime, the inventor of the legal scheme of the 367 parliamentary quorum, Sabih Kanadoğlu, detonated his new bomb: “If Gül is elected president, his political immunity would be revoked and he would become vulnerable to legal proceedings.” I’m sure the Higher Education Board’s (YÖK) committee of university rectors will shortly prop up Kanadoğlu’s new scheme through “scientific” methods.
One cannot help asking at this point what sort of country this is. Those who turned a blind eye to people’s determination at the ballot box think that people’s will is temporary. The other night we discussed the issue on Mehtap TV with Ali Bulaç and Ahmet Taşgetiren, and we were inundated with faxes, calls and e-mails. Let me summarize for you the messages we received: What else should people do to show that they are for democracy? The July 22 elections were held democratically with the entire world watching. The results should be respected by each an every institution and person. Abdullah Gül has become the ‘peg’ of democracy. If he is not nominated in the presidential run, democracy in Turkey receives a deep wound. If the Republican People’s Party (CHP) had received the number of votes the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has, would we be encountering all this all the same? There is no other approving authority than the people. People no longer want masters; they now want to be served. People made the final statement -- it behooves everyone else is to shut up. When will the bureaucracy learn to respect the people’s decisions?
All these statements proved the people’s determination. People want to see democracy “in essence, not in words.” Nobody has the right to dissipate the atmosphere of peace that Turkey has caught. The election results should not be perceived as the score of a rematch or retaliation. If Turkey suffers from a new source of tension it won’t benefit anyone. The tolerant and embracing attitude showed by Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on election night should be responded to positively by everyone and all institutions.
Our nation is pointing to a healthy ground for governing the country. This ground is where the democratic discipline and the culture of conciliation intermingle. Come, let everyone leave behind all enmities and hard feelings and turn a new page for our future.
