Özdalga exposes CHP’s discomfort with democracy to world leaders

In a press conference organized at the Turkish Parliament on Monday, Özdalga said he wrote an 18-page letter disclosing the CHP’s practice of “disruptive” politics vis-a-vis democratization in Turkey. “Today, this party is resisting all steps aiming to put an end to military intervention in politics. It also opposes the trial of those involved in illegal activities trying to undermine the constitutional order and advocates their actions. It vigorously opposes changing the supreme judiciary’s privileges deriving from the junta regime’s Constitution. It also strives to prevent all those reforms undertaken as part of the democratic initiative by employing all kinds of defamatory tricks,” he said, adding that the CHP is in fact the political wing of the establishment keeping Turkey’s democracy under tutelage.

Explaining his letter to reporters, Özdalga said he simply gathered the remarks made by CHP leader Deniz Baykal about the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer and Cage investigations into alleged coup plots as well as the government-proposed judicial and constitutional reforms and also the democratic initiative. He said he had sent the letter not only to Europe but to all social democrats and democrats around the world from Japan to Brazil and Australia to Mexico. He vowed to continue this fight until the CHP becomes a democratic party.

A number of investigations, including said probes, are continuing, aiming to bring to account those who planned subversive action to undermine stability and create chaos in the country with the eventual aim of toppling the democratically elected government.

There are footnotes to all the remarks compiled by Özdalga indicating when and where Baykal made them. The report-like letter marks Özdalga’s second attempt to inform world politicians about the CHP’s real endeavors. He sent a similar but shorter letter two years ago to all politicians affiliated with the Socialist International (SI), comprising 170 political parties and organizations from all continents.

‘CHP political leg of the tutelage regime’

Özdalga starts his compilation of the CHP’s discontent with democracy and pluralism with a snapshot of the recent economic and civil society developments in Turkey. He continues his analysis first by pinpointing the CHP’s role in, and actually against, all those developments. “In addition to the military and the senior judiciary, the CHP is widely, and rightly, considered the third component -- and the political ‘leg’ -- of Turkey’s tutelage regime. Today, the party vociferously and doggedly resists every initiative to get the military out of politics and to bring officers who have committed illegal acts to justice, and vehemently opposes any attempt to reform the top courts, whose role in the present Constitution was laid down by the 1980 military regime,” he wrote, adding that the “examples of coordinated actions by the military, the high-level courts and the CHP are numerous,” in the letter, titled “On the disruptive politics of the CHP of Turkey.”

He also argues that the CHP is actually deceiving European politicians regarding its “support” for Turkey’s European Union bid. “Most EU politicians who have spoken with Mr. Baykal in Brussels would believe the CHP is a staunch supporter of Turkey’s EU bid. But at home, by contrast, the CHP leads the stubborn opposition to practically every reform needed for EU membership,” Özdalga noted. As with the latest example of the CHP’s record of opposition to steps on the road toward accession to the 27-country bloc, Baykal publicly stated several times that the CHP is against the government’s proposed changes to the Constitution, which envision bringing the country’s civil-military relations up to European standards as well as expanding democratic representation in the higher courts, an intrinsic part of political culture in the West.

The CHP has received huge criticism from civil society for having sided with the country’s long-privileged elite rather than trying to meet people’s expectations for a more just and democratic civilian regime where everyone, independent of their ethnic, religious and political affiliations, can maintain their dignity. The EU candidate country has been struggling to become a full-fledged democracy after having suffered persistent military and civilian bureaucratic pressure on the elected legislators.