The CHP's election strategy

Last week, the Republican People's Party (CHP) kicked off their election campaign for the Nov. 1 parliamentary vote. Although most journalists did not expect the main opposition party to make major changes to their platform, a lot of things had happened at home and abroad since the most recent parliamentary election. Many wondered, what did the Republicans think about the most recent developments?

In an attempt to find answers, I traveled to Ankara and attended the Republican People's Party's (CHP) campaign launch event. Compared to similar events in the past, the convention was better organized and attracted a more enthusiastic crowd. Speaking to CHP members in the audience, I encountered party members who were notably more confident and soft-spoken than before. In a way, the CHP membership's attitude reflected the party leadership's emphasis on the economy at the expense of ideological principles ahead of the June 7 parliamentary elections. Compromise, it appeared, had been the key word in party circles over the past couple of months.

Although it was pretty clear which issues CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu would touch upon in his address, observers were nonetheless interested in his tone. Personally, I found that his speech suffered from the same problem as his previous addresses: Certain parts about Turkish democracy and individual freedoms were important, yet the speech failed to convey a broader message and lacked comprehensiveness. What Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu said about the Kurdish question, for instance, was a great example of this problem. Over the past decades, Turkey made significant progress with regard to the issue and eventually experimented with the Kurdish reconciliation process in an attempt to negotiate the PKK's disarmament. Provided that the government's commitment to broader cultural rights to the Kurdish community did not distance the PKK from violence, the country is faced with another problem: The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). In Turkey, where all groups freely express their ideas through democratic channels, no politician should be able to avoid addressing the HDP leadership's failure to distance themselves from the PKK, a terrorist organization, whilst talking about the Kurdish question. Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, however, notably avoided the subject altogether. Although it was extremely important for the CHP leadership, which opted to conveniently ignore the problem until recently, to present the Kurdish question as a problem of equality, the speech offered no clues with regard to the implementation of future steps.

The Kurdish question, clearly, wasn't the focus of Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu's speech. The CHP chairman talked about a range of issues including education and Turkey's relations with Egypt, but his main emphasis remained on young people and his party's campaign pledges. Appealing to the CHP's younger supporters, he asked youngsters to "wipe out the dinosaurs from Turkish politics and play a more active role since you will bring peace to our country." The words were met with a wave of applause from the audience. In addition to pledging two annual bonuses to retired citizens, he promised to create jobs for all college students in the country. Another point of emphasis was that the coalition talks had revealed the inability of a single-party government to address Turkey's problems - a point that some journalists saw as a sign of the CHP's eagerness to serve in a coalition government.

What does Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu hope to achieve in the Nov. 1 parliamentary elections? "We will not hit three birds with one stone," he said, "We will hit five!"