The results of the November 1 election, like the November 3, 2003 elections that brought the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to power for the first time, had an effect that suddenly ended all prior arguments once and for all in favor of the AK Party. Everything took place within the integrity of a flow in which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AK Party won and made almost everyone say, “the end of this adventure, [too].”
Every election for the last 13 years has had such a start and end story. In every story and each time, a fight against the disorder of various evils has been a determining factor and eventually with an ending in which the good wins, a move was made toward the next stories. The November 3, 2002 elections, which buried all the parties left over from the February 28 military coup in the ballot box; the July 22, 2002 elections that followed the great fight after the April 27 e-memorandum issued because the President's wife wears a headscarf, and ended the whole argument; the June 11, 2011 elections, which were held in the shadow of Ergenekon discussions and clinched the people's power; the September 12, 2010 referendum, etc., were each elections that reflected the entirety of a similar story.
There was an incompleteness, something lacking in the total flow of the June 7 elections. It seemed as if that story wouldn't end there. In the phrase that is now almost identified with Erdoğan's story, “that song wouldn't end there.” June 7 was only a line from a song that would end differently.
In the aftermath of every election, efforts are made to interpret the people's message. What did the people want to say with this? Frankly, it was obvious in every way that the people's message was an incomplete one. It placed a huge 16-percent difference between the AK Party and the closest opposition party, yet the party that came first out of the elections again was not permitted to come to power alone. However, when considered together with the other political parties, there was no open door for the likelihood of any kind of reasonable coalition.
Comments made right after the June 7 elections that the people want a coalition government received a different and surprising response from the people who were asked such a question. The people brought no single party to power, but were saying that they do not want to be governed with an at least 70 percent coalition. The indication of November 1 was hidden in tthese data. Although 95 percent of the people did not see the likelihood of any party other than the AK Party coming to power alone, 70 percent wanted single-party rule. Although at least half of those who vote for the other parties did not vote, it meant that they too were content with the AK Party's forming a single-party government. One-third of this 30-percent segment changed their minds on November 1 and voted for the AK Party, leading to the current outcome. Although the remaining two-thirds did not vote for the AK Party, they wanted the AK Party to come to power alone.
These data show that the AK Party is the single guarantee of Turkey's social integrity. As much as the new electorate map formed with the votes cast for the AK Party across the country shows the differentiation in society's political demands, it also shows the desire for unity and integrity.
The evil that emerged on the way to the June 7 elections and which caused great unease among the society, was an alliance of evil never before seen that attacked Turkey's physical integrity. There was nothing local, nothing that was part of this nation in the whim that brought the parallel structure, the PKK, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the People's Revolutionary Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) together with media groups against the AK Party.
This alliance had no good intention or message regarding the future of this nation. Thank God, this alliance, which dared to reveal its real intention on the morning of June 7, very quickly reached the conclusion that June 7 was exactly the final they were expecting. Whereas now, when considered together with November 1, June 7 will be remembered like a bad joke played by the people on this alliance of evil.
Certainly, there is no doubt about the reality of the results of the June 7 elections having been a serious warning from voters to the AK Party. It must have had an awakening effect on all levels of the AK Party in terms of remaining loyal to its pact with the voters. It is obvious that the 13-year rule renewed and continuing with elections is not something witnessed ever before, neither in Turkey nor around the world. It is normal for such a long rule to lead to serious wear and fatigue and atrophy regarding certain matters among the party's staff.
The AK Party, which gained a powerful approval to form a government alone on November 1, must have received the June 7 warning. The AK Party, which will be running Turkey with a strong authorization, needs to adopt the messages and lessons it got from the people on June 7 as food to take along the journey, and it will do so. All praise is to God, who warned His faithful servants and protected them against themselves on June 7, before such a rare and undebatable victory and power.
