Turkey has to end era of military intervention, says new CHP leader

“If we want there to be democracy in this country, if we say the will of the people is the highest power in the country, we should close all doors against interventions in democracy from outside,” in an interview with Today’s Zaman.

He said the nation was not interested in politics of conflict or tension, noting that he will employ a calm discourse as the CHP’s new leader. Kılıçdaroğlu stated his opinion that tense debates between politicians reflected negatively on citizens. “We can get results by using calm language and avoiding a tense style. If we can achieve this, then citizens would be interested in what we are saying.

I prefer to use a calmer style. This does not mean that we will not criticize the government. We will, but we will also praise the things they do right. If they are making mistakes, it is the job of the opposition party to voice that. The more the government heeds criticism from the opposition, the narrower the opposition’s sphere. The government heeding the opposition’s criticism would be more beneficial for the government itself than it would be for the opposition.”

He also said civil society organizations, not only opposition parties, should be criticizing the government. “However, it is evident that criticism from agencies outside the political sphere in Turkey is directed at a cost. You voice your criticism, the next day you find two tax auditors waiting at your door. This is one of the main obstacles to democracy. You are blocking criticism using state authority.”

He said he and his team would be carrying out important projects in every sphere to turn the party into a government alternative for voters. During the interview, at CHP headquarters in Ankara, Kılıçdaroğlu said the CHP would not compromise on democratization. He said Turkey has failed to raise its standard of democracy due to periodic interventions but added that he believed the era of coups in Turkey has ended. “Neither the military with its weapons nor any other power should intervene in democracy. Politicians should go to the people and explain their programs and worldviews and how they will solve problems just the way they were elected by the will of the nation. We should denounce all interventions into politics including midnight statements [from the military]. The Turkey of the 21st century has to close this chapter. What happened in the past is causing democracy to improve slowly. If those things had not happened, we could have made our democratic standard much higher by now,” he said, referring to the four past coup d’états staged in Turkey.

He also emphasized media freedoms as a sine qua non of a strong democracy. “We have to create the environment for the media to function in freedom. The media should be neither the voice of the government nor of the opposition. The media should be the eyes, ears and voice of the people. We have no objections to criticism from the media. It is impossible for us to accept the custody of any political authority over the media. Politics should be impartial toward the media.”

Kılıçdaroğlu said if there was a coup d’état, he would be the first to stand in front of a tank. “I have no hesitation about this. I am saying this as the CHP chairman. If there is a military intervention, the CHP would be against it. We will advance this country within the boundaries of democracy. Journalists asked İsmet İnönü how he felt about being defeated, after his first election defeat in the country’s first elections. He said, ‘True, I was defeated, but today is my victory because we brought the multiparty system to this country’.”

Kılıçdaroğlu said politicians and state agencies should not discriminate against media organs, noting that he was strictly opposed to the General Staff’s practice of not granting accreditation to some newspapers to attend its press conferences and events. He also criticized bans on some Internet sites in Turkey, saying bans would not take the country anywhere. He said he believed the ban on the headscarf on university campuses would resolve itself if politicians did not intervene.

Kılıçdaroğlu also shared opinions on the perceived conflicts between some state agencies. “Every agency of the Republic of Turkey is reputable. We should protect them all, with the utmost of care. Be it the university, the military, the judiciary, Parliament, intelligence agencies or the police, we should take this approach. The organs of the state should be made reputable. The politician should not simply jump into these agencies and say, ‘I will infuse my own ideology into this agency’,” he said, adding that agencies should not become a part of daily political plans.

Line between right-left blurred

The new CHP leader also said he believed that the concept of right-wing and left-wing politics is now obsolete. He said politics played out along two main other axes. “One is conducting honest politics that focuses on the people and that takes it as its honor to answer to the people. The other one is politics that makes its players prosper financially, that deceives the people to win their vote, only to forget about them later, and that does not keep its promises. The divide between the left and the right is now not significant. Corruption and theft don’t have anything to do with left or right. Whoever is engaged in such acts, we have to make them answer.”

Kılıçdaroğlu also stated that he did not view the citizens of the Republic of Turkey as conservatives. “Look at our past elections; they have always been on the side of progress. Our society has always gone after new discourses and new faces. Look at how Özal, Demirel and Ecevit were elected. The society has always been in a search for the right person to solve its problems.”

“I tell everyone that we are expecting everyone who is honest and decent to come under the roof of the CHP. Not a single child in this country should go to bed hungry. … This is why we will introduce family insurance and wire money for needy housewives directly to their bank accounts. They can do whatever they need to with that money. In Diyarbakır’s Bağlar district, women had to wade through mud to buy a loaf of bread. Such scenes do not reflect well on Turkey.”

He also said he believed the religious segments of society would vote for the CHP. “It is wrong for a politician to intervene in the spiritual relationship a religious person has in this or that way, because when you do, that is applying pressure on their beliefs. The job of a politician is to make sure that a person can live with their beliefs in freedom.” Kılıçdaroğlu said the headscarf ban had come to the complicated impasse where it stands today because of the interventions of politicians. “I have had headscarved girls work on my election campaign. We also want their votes. I want their votes so that we can bury politics that benefit from discriminatory policies. We should unite and be together. We will respect all beliefs.” He said his own mother was also covered, as well as one of his sisters. “I have never asked them why they wear the headscarf. If there is healthy discussion without the intervention of politicians, these problems would be solved.”

EU process will contribute to Turkey

Kılıçdaroğlu criticized the government’s EU policy, calling it inconsistent. “It can display a clearer stance on the issue. At the moment the talks have stalled. We are positive about the EU; we believe the EU process would bring so much to Turkey in terms of democracy, freedoms and human rights. But we will accomplish them whether the EU takes us in or not. We will not foster a special preoccupation about EU entry or rejection.”

He said in previous meetings with EU officials, he’d said that Turkey is disturbed by the double standards the EU has set for it. “I told them, you say ‘do this and we’ll have you join.’ We do that, but then you still do not let us in. We told them, ‘We will have to introduce a distance to our relationship with you as long as these double standards continue.’ In the next few days, we’ll meet with EU ambassadors; I will say the same there. They should not make any proposals of a “special status” for Turkey. They should also avoid using our membership as a matter of domestic politics.

Kılıçdaroğlu also shared his opinion on the Kurdish question, saying his party had concrete projects for the Kurdish-dominated Southeast. “Our biggest obstacle is that politics is being trapped into religious or ethnic molds. Those who have done this in the past have paid dearly for it. The EU has taken such issues completely out of politics.” He said there were various economic, cultural, sociological and educational aspects to the eastern and southeastern problem. “A starved person would either go up to the mountains [join the terrorist organization] or join the mafia. A person should first be fed in order to be able to look at life in freedom.” He said he completely supported a previous report written by the Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP) on the Kurdish question in 1989. He said employment and economic problems had to be addressed first to at least marginalize terrorism. However, he said he was against Kurdish being used in schools as the language of education. “We are a society that has only recently started the process of becoming a nation. We should avoid potentially divisive behavior during this time. We should continue on our way with the awareness of our differences but also while strengthening our unity.”