The story of the attempts to limit the rulership dates back to old times.

Constitutionalism moves, pursuits of limited or wide communal consonance, the matter of sharing the sovereignty and the attempts to code it, representative order structures… All of these became evident in our country during the first half of the 19th Century.

This is an important origin, and the recent regime arguments are a piece of the continuity.

However, there are also other origins.

One of them is the “individual cult”.

The powerful “leader” idea and existence had formed one of the strong legitimacy sources between “the community and politics” and “politics and the state” (even though it passed interlocked with states like authoritativeness, patriarchy and populism according to the period).

It could also be interpreted like this:

“Individual – institution”, “individualization – institutionalization tension”... The first one’s superiority over the latter in every political tradition and period, this outline’s success in finding an important communal support and demand, point out a deep origin in the sense of political culture and tradition.

The “conservative” and “left-wing” formats of this are different, and at the same time, sit on the same mentality and political perception as an essence. Mustafa Kemal, İnönü and Ecevit lines are on one side, while Menderes, Demirel, Özal and Erdoğan lines are on the other side… The similarities in the sense of politics style between these lines are extremely intense and meaningful.

The summary is always the same: a “leader”, which is in control of his party, country and regarded as the main source of legitimacy and who feels that way, understanding and order….

Presidential system arguments also fit into the same historic frame.

As a matter of fact, we see that even the recent presidential system arguments are pursued on the basis of individuality rather than the institution aspect.

What’s being argued is actually the person, who is desired to be the president or being objected to in the same manner. Positive and negative readings, indexed on the argued individual, are an individual-indexed politics perception.

Political developments and conjuncture are not the only things provoking this situation.

It’s not only the Tayyip Erdoğan factor in politics or the readings related with Erdoğan, which are successful or unsuccessful, which give hope for the future and democracy, or, which give the feeling of danger.

The “political perception tradition” and “tradition of making politics” also do not play an important role in this sense.

Let’s look at the political sides one by one…

In the conservative segment, the “communal” one has been imprisoned within “politics” and the politics is indexed on political actors and individuals.

This situation started to push the opportunity of the social and cultural differences, within the conservative segment, to influence politics aside. It’s clear that the shaping of the politics in the center and the “political attitude”, which is produced there, becoming a single and main ownership criterion in the conservative segment, are exercising a standardizing control over this segment, and almost, a rulership control.

In this sense, we should see that the conservative segment has reached the eve of an important and difficult test in their community-politics, multiplism-majoritarianism balance and preference.

On the opposition front, the situation is not that different.

On this front, the conservative world and sociology is being reduced to words, symbols and to a political flow, and as for that political flow and politics; they are being perceived and identified over a single individual. Tayyip Erdoğan-centered Turkish politics, the AK Party and conservative segment reading are carrying the signs of a swift return to old reflexes, especially in the left-wing circles.

This is the reflex to perceive the community, communal differences and people within closed groups; however, most importantly within the political flows represented by those groups. This is the exercise to reduce the community to an array of ideologies, and for some segments, this is provoking a post-Kemalist attitude, although, at the same time it’s feeding off it. As the Özgecan murder was reduced to artisan murder, and every development had been reduced to political rulership and the leader, it carried the clear signs of this situation.

The liberal and left-wing segment is undergoing a serious test in this sense, and, they are experiencing this test extremely badly.

The cost of the return from communal to political and the radicalism created by it is primarily in the mentality.