Those who claim that President Vladimir Putin is governing the Russian Federation like a czar have held demonstrations in the capital Moscow and in St. Petersburg. “The Other Russia” and the “United Civil Front” have made it clear that they are not happy with his authoritarianism. As a response Russian authorities have decided to arrest over 200 protesters, including Eduard Limonov, the head of the Russian National Bolshevik Party, and world ex-chess champion Garry Kasparov. By doing this the actual government has proven that it doesn’t want full democracy in Russia. In Turkey, opponents to the government and to the idea of a next president from the governmental party organized a huge rally in Ankara. Some people called them “the Other Turkey.”
We should indicate that this qualification is false. Those who walked in Turkey’s streets with flags and patriotic songs were talking about the “republic” and the regime. As the broader framework was laid down by the chief of general staff and by the president himself, this was expected. The Ankara protest was against the government and the current parliamentary composition. The protesters weren’t against the whole system, but the identities of some people in powerful positions within the system. This has helped to show how democracy can be forgotten when speaking for the republic.
It is difficult to see what kind of government these marchers want instead of the actual one. Even if they don’t want to see Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan standing for president, what they are actually doing will certainly ensure that he does. Maybe this is what they want. Maybe through this they think that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will diminish and the opposition parties will win the next general elections. But even if Erdoğan refuses to become president, some other candidate supported by the AK Party will be elected in his stead.
Looking at debates over parliamentary majority and quorums, could the presidential election become a constitutional crisis? Those who are saying “anything but the AK Party” or those who say “the parliamentary majority is everything” reflect the democratic deficiency in Turkey.
Those who have never asked whether the electoral system was democratic enough or not are now asking “Should a political party that has a majority in Parliament elect the next president?” The political party that has obtained a parliamentary majority without obtaining the majority of the vote wants its every decision to be considered legitimate. Meanwhile those who insist that democracy is not possible without secularism have made the latter their priority. But democracy itself never becomes a priority.
In Russia the opposition wants more democracy. In Turkey they want more “republic.” All of this in an EU-candidate country that is officially accepted as one in which the Copenhagen political criteria have been implemented.
When the projects of the political groups and political parties have no democratic references, when the electoral system remains the same, when the governmental parties are not democratic in their structure and philosophy, then it’s possible that every actor in political life, every political party and its leader can be drowned in the “state-citizen” spiral.
