They filtered what they have been told. They thought about the candidates and verified and checked them. They weighed them with delicate scales. They reviewed their decisions several times. Eventually, they went to the polling stations and cast their votes. Now, we look at the decisions individually made by 48 million people after a strenuous thought process and try to interpret them. Every person has claims. These claims meet each other in a competitive political order. The decision is given by the people. Who is right? To what extent? Who should rule? What's the correct choice? The answer and the judgment are given by the people. The essence of the democratic political system is hidden in these answers: Only the people have the ultimate mandate. It is the people that decide what is correct. It is the people that decide who will rule. The duty of the politicians, who fiercely compete with each other, and people like us, who interpret politics, is to pay due respect to this decision.
Farewell to leader Muhsin
Every election has its unique symbols. We will remember the local elections of March 29 most probably as the election without Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu. Fate! Today, we will be holding his funeral while discussing the election results. May God bless him, and may he rest in heaven.
The loyalty of the inhabitants of Sivas to him should be noted as a meaningful message that must be given the primary place among the important results of this election. It was a great example of generosity. The inhabitants of Sivas gave him the most precious thing they have, i.e., their votes. This noble behavior deserves respect. This noble behavior also illustrates the distinction between loving a politician and supporting him. When one is supposed to choose between reason and the heart, the heart rarely wins. This is not intended as a regret.
It is like a story I heard from leader Muhsin in late 1970s. The story characterizes how the ideological rift of those years corresponded to the people's world of values. In a village in central Anatolia, an ülkücü (an activist nationalist) boy drew a big picture of a wolf -- a symbol of the ülkücü movement -- on the rock near the spring. The leftist teacher of the village erased the picture at night. The boy beat the leftist teacher. It is a major incident in the village. The people are divided into two groups. The old people of the village discuss the event in the tea house of the village. One of the old men said: "Is it acceptable? The teacher is our guest. Is it proper to beat one's guest?" Another old man, who favored the boy, retorted: "What should he do? The boy took pains and painted a picture of a dog. And the teacher erased it. He should not have erased his dog."
The ideals, the symbols of those ideals or the dreams one fancies for this country have different counterparts in the world of realities of society. But there is always the warmth of the heart ready to close the gap. This warmth may not be directed at the ideas, but it is readily shown to the owners of those ideas.
Loss of the AK Party
The vessel of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) suffered damaged in this election. Yet, its main body is colossal and robust. Moreover, there is still no other vessel around to challenge it. It will not be difficult for it to repair the damage and continue with its progress. It is obvious that a leader like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been accustomed to miraculous achievements, will attach due importance to this damage and draw important consequences from it. However, the AK Party will have to sail not on the open sea, but in shallow and dangerous waters.
The tradition on which the AK Party relies is based on 15 years of experience, dating back to 1994. With the large amount of electoral support given to the AK Party in 1995, the success of its local administrations was obvious. The AK Party leader had started his career in the local administration, making the value of his experience in local administration readily understandable. After the 1995 elections, I wrote a long analysis of the election in my column titled "Türkiye Günlüğü" (Turkey Chronicles) and explained that the Welfare Party (RP) had besieged İstanbul and eventually conquered it. I had likened the RP to the desert dwellers depicted by Ibn Khaldun: The desert dwellers are bold, strong and have solidarity among themselves; they set their sights on the city and beat the lazy and loose city dwellers. Eventually, the desert dwellers start to become like the city dwellers. Another group of desert dwellers emerges, besieges the city and conquers it.
Fifteen years are sufficient for the AK Party municipalities to become like the city dwellers. As the number of people joining the military campaign for the spoils of war increases, the likelihood of winning a victory decreases. The AK Party has transformed Turkey. Possibly, the AK Party's rival will be nurtured by the AK Party itself. Those striving to win and those trying to preserve what they have won do not exert the same level of labor or effort. In order to maintain its grip on local administrations, the AK Party must solve the problem of "sharing urban benefits" in a transparent manner.
With the initiative of the AK Party leader, three big parties tried to create an atmosphere of general elections. The election results imply that the citizens tended to view this election as it is, i.e., as a local election, and gave their decisions accordingly. The tragic changes in votes attributable to the selection of candidates are proof that this election was perceived as a municipal election -- as it should have been. The case of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is living proof of this. The rhetorical tensions devised to create an atmosphere of general elections did not have a counterpart in the voters.
CHP and MHP
It is hardly possible for this election to trigger a debate on the legitimacy of the existing Parliament. The argument voiced by the prime minister that the sum of the votes for the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the MHP did not match the number of votes the AK Party received is sufficient to put off such debates for some time. Still, the AK Party suffered some damage in this election. Except for the relative difference in the votes for the MHP, the opposition did not have sizable success. The MHP's success, it seems, is dependent on dynamism and the skills of their local organizations. The MHP has the endowment to easily reach out to the voters of the AK Party. By nominating the correct candidates, it can do this.
The striking achievement of this election for the CHP was its performance in İstanbul. The support for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in İstanbul may be expected to raise hopes for change in the CHP. Remembering that Erdoğan received less support than Kılıçdaroğlu when he had become the mayor of İstanbul in 1994, we can realize the extent of support Erdoğan had built up. The CHP seeks to find its own voice and color in order to become a party of the masses. Deniz Baykal is an obstacle in front of the CHP because his leadership consists purely of rhetoric without a skeleton.
The CHP had set out on the revolutionary change of mentality that started with the chador initiative in İstanbul. While Baykal has worked to weaken this initiative with his statements, the election results showed that this change appeals to the people.
Only loser of the election: Ergenekon
After the 1960s and 1970s, which was dominated by the ideological polarization between the right and the left, Turkey was forced by military coups to express itself along the political cleavage of secularism. Every election has been held with the threat of reactionaryism on the agenda and in the shadow of tension over secularism. For the first time, an election was held without the accompanying debates over secularism. No one voiced concerns about the threats against the regime. There was still rhetoric. But no one tried to ask for help from the rhetoric of reactionaryism. This did not prove beneficial to the AK Party. This election is proof that tensions over secularism always play into the hands of conservative parties. This is a point that the CHP should take into consideration.
The reason the debates about the regime or the threat of reactionaryism aren't items on the agenda of this election is related to Ergenekon. As the second indictment shows, Ergenekon was willing to arrange daily politics and manipulate political parties. In doing so, its primary weapon was to trigger debates about the regime by those who assume themselves to be responsible for protecting the state. For the first time, Ergenekon could not use this weapon during the elections. Thus, secularism was not discussed. But this proved to be disadvantageous for the AK Party.
The Ergenekon investigation was an important issue that was felt but not voiced in this election. The AK Party suffered losses, but it did not fail. The CHP and the MHP can be considered as partial winners, too. The only loser was Ergenekon, which had worked like a scorpion in every previous election. Ergenekon could not enter this election as a political player and it could not be represented. It lost the election that it could not enter.
Kurdish issue
The first signs about March 29 elections came when the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) started violent protests in the big cities in late 2008. It seemed that the DTP would make a violent scene in the election by burning cars and placing children in the front row as protection. Yet, this did not happen. The DTP realized that this tension would translate into a loss of support and abandoned this strategy. Thankfully, the elections were held in a peaceful and secure atmosphere because of this stance by the DTP. The election results imply that this position proved beneficial to the DTP.
There is an optimistic and hopeful mood for the Kurdish issue. Some important moves have made some progress while others are about to be launched. TRT Şeş has been received without much resistance. With the developments in northern Iraq, Turkey has the potential to create a permanent peace for the Kurdish issue.
Viewing its support within the general framework of Turkish politics, the DTP has to introduce modest limits to its claim for Kurdish identity politics. Nevertheless, identity politics has a considerable capacity for representation. With this capacity, the DTP is one of the sides to the Kurdish issue. Those who voted for the DTP tell us that the Kurdish issue cannot be viewed purely as a socioeconomic problem, but should be treated as a political issue and that only political solutions can bring about social peace. A political solution denotes a solution based on democratic means, fundamental rights and freedoms and mostly on political reasoning.
The Ergenekon investigation has renewed hopes particularly among Kurds. The bloodshed may be forgotten and wounds may be healed and pain may be buried deep inside. Lawlessness is a problem of the past, but also of today and the future. Without penalizing the perpetrators of the murders committed in the past, you cannot create an atmosphere of security. The bones excavated in the death wells of Silopi are shedding light on this future. It was already known that people had been murdered, but now the time has come for the guilty parties to stand trial. It follows that it is still possible to establish a state governed by law to live safely within it. This hope is the biggest guarantee for the settlement of the Kurdish issue.
The Kurds who voted for the AK Party and the Kurds who voted for the DTP should be seen as different sides of peace in light of the Ergenekon investigation.
Every election means another experience in which there is progress and the reinforcement of democracy. Those who have lost control and know no measure of their power will get their gauge from elections. The Turkish nation is far more advanced than the organs of the Turkish state. It never turns a blind eye; it can measure things properly and correctly. We must never forget that we are not looking at extraordinarily meaningful election results because Ergenekon could not tinker with the election through debates on secularism or other illegal interventions. Everyone, particularly the political parties, will get their share from them. The most proper assessment is that those who view the elections with democratic maturity will see more things.
Except for Ergenekon, this election has no loser. We are all winners.
