Türkiye left a critical election behind in which some stunning discussions took place. The global media branded the election in Türkiye as "the world's most important of the year." Besides such branding, the Western press became a party to the election. From their point of view, they took a stance against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who defended Türkiye's interests, safeguarded Türkiye's security, expanded the economy, developed the country and made Türkiye a regional power.
It is an obsession of the colonizers categorically; they believe that all the nations they have enslaved will always remain slaves. I think the West took a strong position against Türkiye without calculating that the global system would be shaken. The attitudes of some media outlets in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States might be evaluated and discussed, but The Economist has taken an overdose attitude here.
They used simple language, like the opposition in Türkiye. They defined Erdoğan as a dictator and his country as an anti-democratic country. They partnered with their collaborators in Türkiye to bring people who serve their interests to work.
But when the election was over, it was clear that the Turkish people sided with the beloved President Erdoğan, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and its past performance, disregarding the global powers, the global media and the opposition acting in concert with them.
How to change layered problems
Here, among the opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) stands in a position worth analyzing. After the CHP-led opposition bloc lost the election, severe internal discussions within the party started. Some party members, including Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, discuss the necessity of a change in the party. However, one cannot meet the demand for change within the CHP with just one chairperson to replace the other. The problem of the Republican People's Party is more complex than that, layer by layer.
The first problem is the existence of an academic group that has been supporting the CHP since the foundation of the republic, which has formed a creamy layer of the academy, studied in first-class schools, detached from its own culture, grew up with Western values, Jacobin, and does not much believe in democracy. These academics look down on the nation and are unaware of the nation's culture. Each of them puts himself in the place of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and aims to enlighten and domesticize society.
The second group is the journalists, who work with the CHP, all detached from reality.
A third group is social media users and trolls, who are always difficult to reconcile with reality. Especially when representatives of a one-party regime mentality take over the keyboard, each can turn into a one-party-Jacobin.
The fourth group is research firms, putting everyone to sleep and letting them believe in a dream that the scientific techniques are not supporting. Such firms were insistent in reporting that the CHP would win the elections, although they knew it couldn't. This group represents the delusiveness of the CHP.
The politicians of the CHP and these four groups are mirroring each other and pulling each other out of reality.
Structural issues
The CHP has two more fundamental issues. First, although the CHP was not in power for decades, some state functions were in its hands. The CHP elites continued to rule the state partially through the army, the legal system and the means of a class of bureaucrats. However, the AK Party abolished the military tutelage and took the military system under the control of the elected political leadership. So the CHP was deprived of this power gradually.
Secondly, there are some local municipalities in central provinces, such as Beşiktaş, Kadıköy and Karşıyaka, that constantly vote for the CHP no matter what. The elites and businesspeople backed by the CHP in such districts make a living from these cream municipalities. These two factors prevent the CHP from acting like a typical political party.
Internal reckoning within the CHP
In the last elections, the CHP supported a desperate effort to come to power without a change in its mindset, but simply denouncing its opponent and trying to win with dry and false arguments such as "the AK Party is unsuccessful, they are undemocratic," and "we will bring democracy if we come." When the bitter reality that such arguments did not convince people in the elections became clear, fierce internal debates and big reckonings within the CHP started.
Intellectual journalists and political elites of the CHP will never go further than where they are now in politics without believing in democracy and reconciling with religion and their history in a real sense, hence without resolving the problems and issues mentioned above. It is the unfortunate fate of the CHP, and it will always stand in its way and confront the party.