It is an absolute certainty that 2022 will live in the shadows of next year’s election. Strongly worded statements have already made their mark on party politics. Let us recall that Turkey bid farewell to 2021 with opposition leaders calling the Turkish president a "political bandit" and urging him to "take his pills." Throughout the year ahead, the leaders of all political parties will tour the country, hoping to connect with voters. That fierce competition will obviously manifest itself in many areas, from inflation and the presidential system debate to foreign policy and the fate of Syrian refugees.

Earlier this week, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Meral Akşener, who respectively chair the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Good Party (IP), reiterated their call for an early election at a groundbreaking ceremony in the southern province of Mersin. Comparing the size of the opposition rally to the number of participants at the ruling party’s public events, Akşener referred to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as "the greatest threat to Turkey’s survival." Kılıçdaroğlu, in turn, pledged to "nationalize all highways and bridges" in addition to claiming that "all Syrians will be sent home within two years with festivities" and promising to moving the tomb of Süleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, back to its original location: "We will also make peace with Syria and Egypt. Turkey’s original settings will be restored in domestic politics as well as foreign policy."

What did the main opposition leader mean by original settings? To endorse a candidate in the 2023 presidential race, the opposition’s single greatest problem is the lack of a common policy agenda for the election’s aftermath. That, in turn, results in opposition parties making promises that contradict one another – a reflection of their impromptu alliance. One cannot help but spot that contradiction just by looking at what the leaders of the CHP and the IP said to the people of Mersin this week.

What about the rest?

It is true that both parties dislike the Syrian refugees in Turkey. The question, however, is whether other movements (like the Felicity Party (SP), the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and the Future Party (GP), which they’d like to join the pro-opposition Nation Alliance) are comfortable with that blatantly racist view. Where does DEVA, a liberal party, stand on "nationalizing" highways and bridges? How will the GP, whose chairperson personally oversaw the relocation of Süleyman Shah’s remains, respond to the main opposition’s comments on that issue? What exactly does it mean to "restore original settings" in domestic politics and foreign policy? Keeping in mind that the CHP opposed counterterrorism operations in Iraq and Syria to cozy up to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which faces closure over its links to the terrorist organization PKK, what could they possibly mean by original settings?

There is no way of squeezing the opposition’s views on key issues (that Turkey will have to address after the 2023 election) in a bundle with its critique of the economy and its proposal for an "augmented" parliamentary system. In turn, the principle of "peace at home, peace in the world" is shared by all political parties. Does the main opposition leader mean by "original settings" the set of principles that governed Turkey under the single-party regime? Do they prescribe Kemalist nationalism and secularism?

Again, what do the SP, DEVA and the GP (and, indeed, the HDP) think about all that? How will the opposition meet the HDP’s pan-Kurdish demands and its commitment to "participating" in the government? Can those nationalist voters, who currently support the CHP and the IP, stomach the HDP’s extreme demands like autonomy?

The parties of Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener strive to get fringe parties like the SP, DEVA and the GP to join the Nation Alliance. By contrast, they intend to position the HDP as an external component of the pro-opposition alliance.

Provided that the pro-government People’s Alliance and the Nation Alliance stick to their respective positions, their competition will primarily focus on a handful of voter blocs – Kurds, young people and religious conservatives – hence the opposition’s recent "political engineering" attempts targeting religious voters.

Conservatives and CHP

It is no secret that the CHP, which constantly attempts to reach out to the political right, has failed to win over conservatives to date. Indeed, the main opposition party’s senior officials, who think that teaching preschoolers about the Quran reflects "a medieval mentality," cannot seem to abandon their actual positions: Kemalist/secularist anger, positivism and self-orientalism.

Does that mean that the opposition will outsource the job of driving a wedge between religious voters and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to the SP, DEVA and the GP? What exactly could those movements offer to religious conservatives, who have actively contributed to Turkey’s transformation over the last two decades? Will they be told to settle for a minor role in the opposition bloc instead of completing that great transformation under Erdoğan’s leadership? Are those folks expected to leave all of their accomplishments to the mercy of parties like the CHP and the HDP? Or should they simply surrender to the chaos of unclear "original settings" and a government by 6+1 parties?

The political engineers cannot seem to wrap their heads around the nature of religious conservative voters, however hard they may try.