Turkey is preparing for the June 2015 elections. We shouldn’t ascribe the heat of politics to the existence of chronic issues every time. Conjuncture can also be an arbiter. For example, nowadays, the language, expressions that are used in daily political discussions, should be perceived as the matter of election investment and the bridging of politics.
Elections are the routines of democracy. However, every election has its unique “historic” importance or privilege. It seems that the 2015 election received its share of this. First of all, this election is closely related with the founding law alteration. I don’t know how aware voters are of this. Usually, the voting behavior is being shaped according to daily practical expectations. As Bekir Ağırdır says, by borrowing a football term, the basic “back four” of the daily subsistence world is shaping voter behavior.
What looks like the infallible common sense of the public is actually nothing else than practical and pragmatist expectations. To be honest, the matter of founding law matter is exceeding the perception and assessment limits of this back four.
It should be accepted that the political priorities of the voters in Turkey had never reached the maturity that is required to make a founder law. Usually no emphasis is being put on it; however, let me state that more that 90% of the voters said “yes” to the September 12th Constitution. Ok, this was a controlled referendum. No anti-propaganda was allowed. The military was applying pressure. However, should the result be like that? In order to explain the situation, it had been said that the people said “yes” to this fascistic constitution in order to get rid of the military. I see this as a cheap populism. Does saying “yes” to the constitution made by the military amount to getting rid of the military? I wonder, what part of Kenan Evren’s presidency, which came as a “bonus”, is equal to getting rid of the military?
Public opinions are perceiving the politics daily. In a sense, this rasps the sharp politics conducted by politicians. On the other hand, this also limits the perceptions beyond the daily subsistence world.
It’s still too early to make evaluations about the possible results of the 2015 elections. However, I can say that expecting a rulership change in this elections would be an empty dream. It’s all about the extent AK Party will be able to carry its majority. AK Party politics is determined on a new founding law. On top of that, it’s possible that they will be organizing their election propaganda around this theme. The unfortunate part of this new founder law issue is that it had been boiled down to a presidential system argument. The arguments around this simplification are shadowing the essential issue. In my opinion, in order to get rid of CHP and MHP’s simplification-based negligence on this matter, AK Party is required to transform their expression and remove this shadowing. As for the founder law, it’s a vital issue. In principle, the founder law is reflecting the construction of a new political community and the mission to restore safety to the nation construction, which blocks the future of the whole nation with almost a century-long deficiency and injuries. The presidential system arguments are the dependent variable of this mission. This is what AK Party needs to explain to the community.
Can 2015 elections see AK Party gain at least 330 parliamentarians, in other words, the majority that will enable them to conduct a new founder law? We will see. However, this depends on exceeding a political expression, which consolidates its own core mass. More or less, the opposition party sees this as well. Their persistence on the anti-Tayyipist simplification-based cheap, aggressive politics, which they conducted since the Gezi incident, is partially due to this. The only success CHP and MHP desire is to prevent AK Party from winning the majority they desire. I think that this Pirus success will not have the same effect on MHP and CHP. I suppose that MHP can preserve their positions in the forthcoming elections, and even advance couple of points forward. This will be enough to calm the infelicity within the party. However, I cannot repeat the same words for CHP. CHP cannot explain the results of the Pirus success to anyone.
AK Party is facing a difficult situation from these aspects. AK Party has to stave these attacks off, while developing an expansionist, political expression. I don’t know to what extent they can be successful in doing this. However, I can say that I doubt that they will be able to carry the mission, which they had undertaken with their consolidation politics, alone.
Then, it’s necessary to think about other options and especially to review HDP’s condition. If HDP can cooperate in the founder law task with a new language, which can exceed their regional identity and the ethnic politics language they conducted until now, then that would be great. This also requires the party to take risks. There is also the risk to go farther and fare worse. On the other hand, forming a new language or expression requires a deeper investment than a plastic transition and arranging a showcase; and a mentality transformation. This is a matter of time and good intentions. I will try to approach the HDP issue in my next article.
