You should have intervened at the right time, Mazahir

In the last month of the year, the election process left the path it was supposed to take and turned into a regime struggle. Public opinion polls today and tomorrow will determine the degree to which the new programs announced by the main opposition party on December 3 are perceived by the electorate. However, I said while watching the live broadcast with journalist-writer friends that the program announced by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will not be well understood by the masses: Tayyip Erdoğan has completely changed the governance structure of Turkey since July 9, 2018, and made it dependent on him. Today, he appoints the officials at all important positions of the state, gathers all the state-owned companies and banks under his hand, and decides all the income and expenses himself.

The Central Bank is under his personal control, no decision can be made without him, from the stock exchange to the Capital Market Council. He appoints and dismisses everyone from judges to university rectors. Not only mayors elected from the AKP but also most of the governors see Mr. Erdoğan as the founding leader of the state.

In such a system, is it possible to implement the declaration of reforms announced by the main opposition leader when there are full of question marks regarding the rules of the election and the methods of classifying and counting the results from the ballot boxes?

My 30-year observations have shown this: neither politicians, nor party supporters, nor almost half of the voters in Turkey are able to predict the situation correctly, instead of conducting pragmatic and realistic analyses, and because they think that pragmatism consists of propaganda. This is one of the main reasons why political philosophy cannot be developed.

The possibility of implementation of the program prepared with the participation of several advisers from the West and Turkey, including Daron Acemoğlu, within the existing system established by Tayyip Erdoğan is zero. Because, in this system, which has been built on the principle of "purchase-sale" without exception, The person who knows best what to give to whom and what to get from whom is none other than Mr. Erdoğan, cannot be. Imagine that in the last 20 years, the chairman of the ruling party and head of state of Turkey, who has surrounded 1 million people who have benefited from the state's opportunities, does not stop helping his 10 million supporters every week and every month. Even though the Republican People's Party (CHP) tries to imitate this situation through the municipalities, the impossibility of obtaining high results in this way aside, it lowers the level of its voter mass.

While failure to achieve improvement in macroeconomic indicators makes the situation even worse, the demand of at least half of the voters becomes concrete: what can you give me today, what is your concrete promise for tomorrow? When it becomes difficult to find a solution to the state of the economy (threatening a chain of supermarkets with 4,000 to 12,000 stores is a developed form of the "onion raids" that occurred exactly 4 years ago), the reserve gold fund is put into circulation: religious foundations, associations, sects. To write that these institutions have now become places that do not obey any rules of Turkey at the moment, despite being prohibited by the current constitution, is not “discovering America” at all.

While the Directorate of Religious Affairs receives almost the largest share from the state budget, most of the examples that often come to light about the hair-raising actions of foundation leaders and teachers, who add strength to strength by allegedly collecting aid, are either not investigated by the legal authorities or, after a short time, the files are closed and thrown aside (as in the case of the murder of women). The fact that religious foundations, associations, and sects have shown their strength so much behind the scenes on the way to the election raises concerns that this election will be a life-and-death election for the secular regime.

One of the main factors supporting this forecast is that the question of whether the election will be held 1 month before or on time is not much more relevant now than it was 15 days ago. The lack of a significant change in the opinion polls in Erdoğan's favor has fueled the opposition's bread while putting the AKP in a helpless position in front of the "early or on time election" dilemma. Because, despite the major changes in the governance system, the article "The same person cannot be a candidate for the presidency for the third time" in the current election law remains in force. Earlier, we also wrote that Mr. Erdoğan will run for the third time regardless of this because there is no legal instance left to prevent his candidacy. However, we did not forget this condition: for this, public opinion polls had to show Mr. Erdoğan at least 10% ahead, even without the AKP.

At the moment, Erdoğan is again the leader who seems to be ahead of everyone else, despite the fact that AKP is the first-ranked party, the reality that "It is legally impossible for him to be a candidate for the third time" has begun to prevail. In other words, it is a problem for Mr. Erdoğan, who needs the support of the opposition to pass the law on holding early elections, as in the example of "I'm on the horns of a dilemma", so Mr. Erdoğan’s asking for this support from the opposition is one problem, not asking for it is another problem...

When was the road to real democracy easy, Mazahir?

Yes, I almost forgot, stay tuned for Mr. Erdoğan announcing his candidacy for the last time.