What would you do if you asked a politically aware child the question "What do you want be when you grow up?" and received the answer, "I want to be an opponent"? You would try and inform the child of everything you know and believe about politics.
Perhaps you would say: "Child, opposition is not a profession but a standing. Political parties and politicians join the opposition because they want to win elections and rise to power. This is why we call the biggest alternative party the "main opposition."
Had the concept of being an opponent been a constant status rather than a variable standing, it would have entered the political lexicon as "chronic opposition."
Trying to explain this to a child who wants to "grow up to be an opponent" might lead one to question the Turkish multi-party democracy.
What do they expect from the elections?
Let us drop the subject of what children want to be when they grow up. What they say does not bear much meaning beyond putting a smile on an adult's face. Would you not laugh if a child who is interested in theater said "I want to be a critic" or a child interested in airplanes said "I want to shoot down airplanes with anti-aircraft weapons"?
What do our political parties expect from the upcoming local and general elections?
Prime Minister Erdoğan has announced he "will leave his post as general president if the AK Party fails to come out as the winner of the elections." And what does Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, general president of the Republican People's Party (CHP), have to say about this? Has anyone heard him say anything along the lines of "I will leave my post as general president if CHP fails to come out as the winner of the elections"?
They are so aware of its impossibility that no one dares to mention anything about coming out as winners. Rather, they stumble between the problems of whether Mustafa Sarıgül or Metin Feyzioğlu should be general president.
We have not heard anything yet, but considering the solidarity between the Gülen Movement and the CHP, there are probably some who are considering to bring Gülen to Turkey and to make him general president of the CHP. They might even consider combining Kemalism and Gülenism by adding a seventh arrow to CHP's symbol and naming it wiretapping.
The parvenu grandchildren of Anatolian artisans, who now see themselves as aristocratic "white Turks" have turned the party into child's play. It is no longer easy to diagnose the CHP.
There is a joke that goes like this:
Two medical students took a bet on who could diagnose the illness of the old man in baggy trousers walking in front of them with a limp. "I bet it is a hernia," said the first one. "No, it is a case of lumbago," the other suggested.
They approached the old man and asked, "What is your illness, is it a hernia or lumbago?"
The old man smiled bitterly, "All three of us are wrong. I thought it was gas, so I shat myself."
