And since words like "attack" and "initiative" are being used, there no longer is any need to say to yourself, "I wonder whether, outside of the Justice and Development Party [AK Party], are there any other failed parties in the Southeast?" Interestingly, despite the fact that the AK Party won in heavily Kurdish cities like Bingöl, Muş and Ağrı, as well as coming in second only to the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in other places, the AK Party is still the only party being labeled by the press as unsuccessful in the Southeast. Perhaps it is because the other parties made miniscule gains in their votes in those regions -- we don't know -- but for some reason, those parties are not labeled as having lost in the Southeast. For example, the CHP somehow managed to be counted as less of a failure than the AK Party in these regions despite having received 0.51 percent (in other words, five out of 1,000) of the vote in Diyarbakır, 0.29 percent (three out of 1,000) of the vote in Batman and 0.76 percent of the vote Van (seven out of 1,000). This is compared to the AK Party's 31 percent in Diyarbakır, 36 percent in Batman and 39 percent in Van. (By the way, one of the best analyses yet written of these most recent elections came from Engin Ardıç on Wednesday. If you haven't read it yet, I strongly recommend you check Sabah daily for this article.)
Newspapers providing information about the CHP's performance in these recent elections have been extremely careful to avoid creating the appearance of "failure" on the party's part. According to the news, CHP leader Deniz Baykal has become suspicious of the failure of the enthusiasm and support shown for the CHP at the Mardin rally to be reflected in the ballot boxes in that city; he has given orders to form a commission to look into the matter. In fact, Gürsel Tekin, the man who was behind CHP İstanbul mayoral candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is apparently to be brought in to head this commission.
Seeing that all the roads in the media these days seem to lead to Kılıçdaroğlu brings to mind the infamous "flea joke." The teacher told Ertuğrul (although you can call him Sedat or Ahmet in this joke if you want to) to go to the blackboard to write some things down for the biology lesson they are all doing in class. But Ertuğrul has only memorized the anatomy of a flea. The teacher asks about the anatomy of a dog. Ertuğrul swallows, and after a few sentences makes his way quickly to the topic of the dog's fur, from whence he dives into a long explanation of the fleas that might be in it. The teacher, sensing the situation, asks in an angry voice, "Well, alright then, what about a fish?" This time Ertuğrul gulps even more deeply, and starts talking: "Well, a fish has scales, but if they were fur instead ..."
Prior to the elections, I wrote an article with some tips for Kılıçdaroğlu on how best to lose these elections. Some of my points were as follows: "He should continue behaving in a way that will strengthen the appearance that he is the candidate of a certain media group, and not the CHP. Kılıçdaroğlu, since announcing his candidacy, has been receiving the open support of the Doğan Group. This is the fastest and most painless way to lose these elections. After all, we are talking here about a group which has shown enormous success in losing every election they have entered. If you are looking for an example, you can examine the 1994 local elections and the July 22, 2007, general elections. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in the 1994 elections that he won, was portrayed as not even being capable of coming in third beforehand. Yes, just as this path is guaranteed to make you lose, the other advantage is its painlessness! Since you will be declared the real winner right until the ballot boxes are opened, you will be inhabiting a sort of dream world, and will ultimately have to learn the truth in one blinding flash of a moment. Yes Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, you are on the right path, carry on!" I have to admit, though, they put on a performance that transcended all of our expectations. Despite a whole seven point difference between Kılıçdaroğlu and the AK Party candidate, Kadir Topbaş, they declared Kılıçdaroğlu the winner of the election. In fact, so much so that were an alien to have landed in Turkey and taken one look at headlines and the news, he or she would have assumed the final result was the opposite of what the reality was. Of course, this is not the real shame; the real shame is that they are now preparing to feed poor Kemal Bey to either Baykal or Tekin.
