Why can't Gül weaken Erdoğan?

For the Western world, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been an increasingly "imponderable" leader since 2011. Turkey has become a country that is boosting its standing in the Middle East, continuing to grow economically and consolidating its domestic stability with the initiation of the reconciliation process. It is obvious that this "imponderable" leader would run the country for a longer time.

Perhaps, it was more frustrating to see a leader who undertook a proactive role in the Syrian crisis give voice to those opposing democratic violations such as the military coup in Egypt, highlighted the hypocrisy of the so-called pro-democratic Western world and make a tremendous impact on both the Turkish and Kurdish streets.

For all these reasons, countries like the U.K. and the U.S., which suppress protesters with the strictest methods when they occupied Trafalgar and Times squares, gave the biggest support to Gezi movement, which occupied Taksim Square for 14 days. They disregarded vandalism, illegal leftist groups and Erdoğan's attempts at reconciliation during a two-day meeting with the legal protestors.

For them, there was no need to take all these into consideration as they easily promoted "imponderable" Erdoğan to an "authoritarian" leader.

In this respect, there was someone who was continuously presented as an alternative to Erdoğan, and unsurprisingly he was Abdullah Gül. Gül as a "prince charming" character who has a discourse that pleases the Western world did not address the military takeover of Egypt in the U.N. General Assembly and carried out a balanced policy as an Islamist. In this way, he gradually outweighed Erdoğan. What makes Gül more appealing to the Western world was his potential to weaken Erdoğan. A number of articles and scenarios were written about this, however, they did not work out. In the last few days, Gül said that he did not have any future political plans under the present circumstances.

It is natural for Gül to emphasize that he does not have political plans about the future "under current conditions." This explanation is far from an honest withdrawal as it is a confession of his inability to divide the AK Party's grassroots or reconstruct it under the current circumstances. The most important factor in the emergence of this scenario is that Gül let his political value be positioned in parallel with the probability of losing the presidency to Erdoğan, especially from 2011 onward.

The West's attempts to isolate Erdoğan and the Gülen Movement's plots to overthrow the government through Gezi and the Dec. 17 operation have failed. Thus Erdoğan became stronger and the AK Party's grassroots were clamped more tightly around Erdoğan.

While all this was happening, Gül distanced himself from Erdoğan, effectively creating greater distance between the party grassroots and himself. Therefore, he kept himself away from the audience that he should address.

If Gül, as a valuable political figure, pays attention to the voice of the AK Party's grassroots, he can resume in his political path in due course. But I am afraid the result will not change if he awaits Erdoğan's failure.