Turkey has witnessed highly charged snap elections 24th of June, crammed into a period of less than three months, once again ending with the victory of President Erdoğan and his ruling party in the transition to the new presidential regime. Although the elections were overshadowed by the state of emergency, the results have been crystal clear. What has the new election taught us that we didn’t already know? What are the new dynamics it has brought to the limelight? What options does the opposition still have after 16 years of consecutive and embarrassing defeat?
To begin with, we have witnessed that the ruling party AKP cannot maintain its majority rule alone, it has relied heavily on the People’s Alliance formed with the ultra-nationalist MHP to secure their mandate. While Erdoğan received 52,59 % of votes (10 % more than his own party), his victory was secured by standing as the sole candidate of AKP and MHP together, unlike other parties who had put forth their own candidates despite party alliances. Moreover, despite the internal schism within MHP with the establishment of İYİ Parti, a spinoff with the leadership of Meral Akşener, the former still managed to secure a surprising 11 % from its traditional range of 11 % to 16 % with minimum effort, although İYİ Parti has garnered around %10 for itself from the share of nationalist votes. What does this signify? Firstly, that MHP will consolidate the king maker position in its alliance with AKP and remind its strategic role to the latter when necessary, pushing for a hawkish political agenda. Secondly, given that MHP and İYİ Parti shares add up to an imposing 21 %, it shows that they have received votes from their bigger alliance partners, namely AKP and CHP respectively[1].
On the other hand, the liberal pro-Kurdish HDP has demonstrated a praiseworthy performance given the unfavorable circumstances (to put it mildly) it was forced to campaign in. Following the uplifting of parliamentary immunities, spearheaded by the AKP + MHP coalition and supported by CHP, the two co-leaders with other prominent figures from the party were arrested in 2016 for making ‘terrorist propaganda’. It was under these circumstances that the party’s co-leader and presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş campaigned from his prison cell mainly through his tweets, without the right to appear in rallies and addressing the electorate only twice on state broadcaster TRT. At the eve of the election, a leaked video footage of Erdoğan addressing neighborhood leaders, suggesting to keep a close eye on HDP voters and warning them to make sure the party does not pass the 10 % threshold, has been an open reminder of the government’s determination to sideline HDP that challenged its majority in the 2015 elections. Amidst this heavy crackdown targeting HDP, the party has still managed to pass the demanding 10 % threshold as the 3rdlargest party in the new parliament, proving once again that it is an indispensable actor in Turkish politics not to be underestimated.
Against the People Alliance, the main opposition party CHP has established the Nation Alliance with the newly established İYİ Party, religious Felicity Party, and Democrat Party. In a very short period of time, İnce managed to reinvigorate CHP constituents and garner a large following, even HDP supporters joining its massive rallies in İzmir and İstanbul to show solidarity. His rhetoric of uniting and encompassing the society as a whole, with its secular and religious components, was a successful move that could transform the antagonistic environment. More importantly, many young disenchanted voters who found themselves in self-imposed social isolation have expressed their rekindling hope in what felt like ‘Gezi all over again’. So what went wrong? As it became clear that Erdoğan was going to win in the first round, İnce vanished into silence until noon the next day, in what felt like total abandonment for his supporters seeking any form of political guidance. When he did appear delivering a post-election speech, it was a bit too little too late. He did manage to receive 30.63 %of the votes with those borrowed from the HDP constituents, considerably surpassing the 22.64 % received by his party.
The experience of CHP in this election teaches invaluable lessons to the party, which has been consistently ignoring the writings on the wall. Firstly, the party needs to let itself undergo the transformation its young constituents are craving for years, becoming the party they deserve to be represented by. The electoral list it has put forth was a huge disappointment, not only due to the low number of female candidates, but also for replacing proactive figures with its old cadres, such as Deniz Baykal the 79 years old ex-leader of CHP who recently had a dangerous brain surgery. Young party members and constituents have been working relentlessly in campaigns, volunteering in every election, showing up in every rally, and they deserve to be represented with the same democratic zest. İnce has shown a glimpse of this potential in the short period he was provided. It is perfectly clear that his resilient and promising leadership is the only viable path for CHP to challenge the charisma of Erdoğan.
Secondly, the party has to give up on the unprincipled pragmatic alliances it has been seeking with the ultra-nationalists, first MHP and now İYİ Parti, which is a risky game to play proven by the changing position of MHP in realigning itself with the ruling party. CHP needs to stop taking part in the political stigmatization of HDP and extend its long-awaited hand to deliver the democratic bloc millions are waiting for since the Gezi movement, embracing their natural allies in the quest for democracy. This step is ever more imperative given the looming threat of death penalty promised by the nationalist bloc. Even if such an alliance will lose the next elections, it will be an honorable failure in the just struggle for rights and freedoms, not an embarrassing one seeking petty calculations. As famously put by Becket: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Ipek Demirsu is an independent research in Political Studies and International Relations and the author of the book Counterterrorism and the Prospects of Human Rights: Securitizing Difference and Dissentpublished by Palgrave Macmillan. She is a former postdoctoral researcher in a joint project by Sabanci University and KU Leuven, entitled “Assessing interdependence between the European Union and Turkey: Policies and cooperation in regional and global governance.” Her research interests include human rights, pluralism, security studies, migration policies, and qualitative research methods.
Image: KLMircea
[1]For all the outcomes of the election, please see https://secim.aa.com.tr/tr.
