Maids of honor of the invitation to the summer ball
Those who read the articles published by the effective media organizations in the West before the elections and the election comments from some Turkish intellectuals after the elections would think that the country will gradually break into an open fight. Indeed, according to these evaluations, the country is headed toward dictatorship and this dictatorship was defeated by "a coalition of democracy." The ultra-authoritarian leader of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) that holds an authoritarian government was expected not to digest the defeat, to overreact and increase his intervention. Therefore, it was almost predestined that "the democracy front" would be more tightknit, the tension would be higher and a kind of "Turkish Spring" would rise up.
However, there is a limit in self-deception. Life eventually tests every premise with reality. Just as none of those expectations have come true, life has flown in the opposite direction. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met the Republican People's Party's (CHP) former chairman, Deniz Baykal, which could not be understood at all by those who want to see Erdoğan as a dictator. He made a commonsensical call and defined his humble role in this process. All the leaders of the oppositional parties quit their pre-election discourses and tried to slightly open the door to a possible coalition with the AK Party. AK Party Chairman Ahmet Davutoğlu has presented a mature attitude open to cooperation from the first moment. Turkey is going toward a coalition because no opposition party benefits from early elections.
There is a simple truth out there. If an election was to be held now, the AK Party would ensure the majority by receiving a few more points. Therefore, the primary job of the opposition is to prevent an election. In other respects, the premise that the three parties in the opposition will come together and form a government is meaningless, but not because they have ideological discrepancies. All in all, they did not find joining forces odd against the AK Party by leaving these ideological discrepancies aside. However, this was not "a coalition of democracy" because there was no power that was becoming more and more dictatorial. Such an aura tried to be created through the refurbishment by some intellectuals and it must have been perceived as reality in the West. Yet the truth was quite different.
The reason why Erdoğan behaved in an interventionist manner during the election process was his desire to obtain the opportunity to immediately change the Constitution, but he could not tell this to his own base and his imposition of this desire recoiled. In other words, the AK Party cannot form an authoritarian government even if it wants to because, before anyone else, its own base does not want such a government. All the more amazing, we cannot say this for other parties. That is, if those parties win a majority, with the bases they have, they will adopt authoritarianism more easily. In other words, the opposition, which has been served as "the coalition of democracy," in effect, sociologically and ideologically, is the carrier of a strong trend of becoming authoritarian in itself.
There is a simple extension to this determination – if the opposition really comes together and forms a coalition government, the fighting environment will become more violent. Many moves that will hurt the AK Party will probably be performed, but no one can prevent the AK Party from exceeding 50 percent of the vote in the next election. Therefore, the opposition parties in fact face the inevitable that they are obliged to the AK Party unless they are ready for a democratic change in the true sense of the term.
"The democracy coalition" is like a necklace that has fallen on the ground whose beads are scattered around. Each opposition party putting on their best dresses has come to the invitation to the summer ball. They play hard to get, but they actually dream about being the maid who is asked for a dance last and marries the prince. This is not surprising. After all, we live in a country that has been normalizing and everyone gets their portion.
However, there is a limit in self-deception. Life eventually tests every premise with reality. Just as none of those expectations have come true, life has flown in the opposite direction. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met the Republican People's Party's (CHP) former chairman, Deniz Baykal, which could not be understood at all by those who want to see Erdoğan as a dictator. He made a commonsensical call and defined his humble role in this process. All the leaders of the oppositional parties quit their pre-election discourses and tried to slightly open the door to a possible coalition with the AK Party. AK Party Chairman Ahmet Davutoğlu has presented a mature attitude open to cooperation from the first moment. Turkey is going toward a coalition because no opposition party benefits from early elections.
There is a simple truth out there. If an election was to be held now, the AK Party would ensure the majority by receiving a few more points. Therefore, the primary job of the opposition is to prevent an election. In other respects, the premise that the three parties in the opposition will come together and form a government is meaningless, but not because they have ideological discrepancies. All in all, they did not find joining forces odd against the AK Party by leaving these ideological discrepancies aside. However, this was not "a coalition of democracy" because there was no power that was becoming more and more dictatorial. Such an aura tried to be created through the refurbishment by some intellectuals and it must have been perceived as reality in the West. Yet the truth was quite different.
The reason why Erdoğan behaved in an interventionist manner during the election process was his desire to obtain the opportunity to immediately change the Constitution, but he could not tell this to his own base and his imposition of this desire recoiled. In other words, the AK Party cannot form an authoritarian government even if it wants to because, before anyone else, its own base does not want such a government. All the more amazing, we cannot say this for other parties. That is, if those parties win a majority, with the bases they have, they will adopt authoritarianism more easily. In other words, the opposition, which has been served as "the coalition of democracy," in effect, sociologically and ideologically, is the carrier of a strong trend of becoming authoritarian in itself.
There is a simple extension to this determination – if the opposition really comes together and forms a coalition government, the fighting environment will become more violent. Many moves that will hurt the AK Party will probably be performed, but no one can prevent the AK Party from exceeding 50 percent of the vote in the next election. Therefore, the opposition parties in fact face the inevitable that they are obliged to the AK Party unless they are ready for a democratic change in the true sense of the term.
"The democracy coalition" is like a necklace that has fallen on the ground whose beads are scattered around. Each opposition party putting on their best dresses has come to the invitation to the summer ball. They play hard to get, but they actually dream about being the maid who is asked for a dance last and marries the prince. This is not surprising. After all, we live in a country that has been normalizing and everyone gets their portion.