Is there a Need for the Turkish Grand National Assembly?

The state tradition in Turkey, which can be reduced to the 'father-state', has a dominant character that controls the resources of the economy and directs the economy through state institutions. The state structure, which has become traditional and embodied with the extension of this understanding, has given birth to its own mass of people who see the state as a 'benefactor' and has led to the integration of the people and the state. 

We cannot see democratization, which is based on the self-governance of the people through representative institutions, only as the exercise of individual rights and freedoms. We should also see democracy and its blessings as a structure that removes the limits on the rights of a society of individuals to organize, and ensures that the individual and ultimately the people are not 'oppressed' against state institutions and the political structures that dominate these institutions. The only alternative in a state where the people can express themselves against possible dictatorial regimes and oppression are political institutions that are uniquely defined for democratic life. Democracy should be seen as a mechanism that gives the individual and society the chance to live without bowing down in the face of the tyrannical power of the state and especially the political power that captures this power, and offers the opportunity to open the blockages in the functioning of the system through elections. Especially in times of increasing political corruption, this exit mechanism is, in my opinion, the main guarantee for the continuation of social peace and the will to live together. 

In addition to political institutions, the Judiciary is the main institution that the public can turn to in order to seek their rights. However, sometimes in societies, the tendency of politicization of the Judiciary may become evident. If there is an opinion in public opinion that the judiciary is politicized, and if judges and prosecutors knowingly or unknowingly serve to create a fixed idea in this direction in the public with their attitudes, you can say 'the judiciary is independent' as much as you want, but it will not be very convincing. The majority of the public has expectations from state institutions in terms of seeking justice and delivering their rights Justice is the foundation of property. No political system that eliminates the ability to seek justice, that leads to this, can survive, and even if it survives through coercion, it will not be of much value in the eyes of the people. 

In democracies, the power to rule rests with governments and especially with the prime minister and/or the president as the head of government. The republican regime offers a flexible mechanism that allows the state to be structured in accordance with democracy. Nevertheless, there are various kinds of state structures that are called republics. Indeed, in Turkey, in the 100 years of the Republic, the form of government has never changed. However, in practice, each period has been different from the other. Even the Atatürk era in the first 15 years of the Republic of Turkey, which we can characterize as 'one man' periods in practice, if not in form, and the Erdoğan era in the last 20 years, have followed a different course in governing the state, with both leaders undoubtedly having different cultural codes and understanding of governance. İsmet İnönü's cult of 'one man' until the transition to the multi-party era has also left its mark on our state life.

The common perception is that the benefactor state is unified in the person of whoever is the head of the state. In addition to Atatürk, Erdoğan and partly İnönü, Adnan Menderes, Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel and Bülent Ecevit have also gone down in our history as leaders who stood out with the dimension of 'carrying the shadow of the state', although not as prominent as these leaders. 

In proportion to the increase in the specific weight of the person at the head of the state, political conflict has become more prominent in Turkish social life. Among the elements of political conflict, political parties and pressure groups stand out in democracies. While political parties focus on seizing political power in accordance with their founding purpose, pressure groups focus on influencing political power. In this context, the political party system and the structure of political parties in a country are of key importance for a proper understanding of the political regime in that country.

In Turkey, for some reason, there have not been many cadre parties that are fed by the social bases formed by the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie and that emphasize conservative and/or liberal ideologies. The mass parties that emerged with the spread of the right to vote as a result of the struggle of the working class in Western society also failed to reach the masses, so parties claiming to represent workers have always remained marginal in the Turkish political system, past and present. Again in Turkey, communist and fascist parties, which emphasized a totalitarian ideology, never really found the right to life. In this respect, it is not possible to talk about the existence of authoritarian regimes based on ideology in Turkey. However, rather than a totalitarian ideology, the leader-based 'authoritarian structured party' views, which are the product of our social structure, are widely accepted in our country. No one can claim that our political parties, which are products of our democratic tradition dating back to 1876, have a truly democratic structure and functioning. 

At this point, when we look at the spectrum of Turkish political parties ahead of the May 14 elections, there is no political party in Turkey that has a cadre and/or ideology-based functioning and that is able to attract large masses of people. For example, we do not have an example of a party that represents big capital circles or is based on the largest workers' organization. 

Our generally accepted example has developed as follows: Political party leaders in Turkey, due to the functioning of political systems, have a tendency to come to power and, if in power, to maintain and increase their power. Party members, on the other hand, are predominantly motivated by the desire to reap the benefits of being in power. This natural balance of interests has come to dominate our political life as an important factor that transforms parties into structures centered around one person. Therefore, the party in power in Turkey assumes a conservative identity, and even if circumstances force it to change, it wants to remain as an obstacle to change in order to preserve its power. It tends to become a pile of wagons rather than a locomotive. Unless our political party leaders want to say 'enough politics', as Merkel did in Germany, they have the instinct to protect their positions until the end. It is almost impossible for the leader of a party in power to say 'I am giving up power'. Strangely enough, the opposition parties, which have suffered countless defeats in elections in our country, have the same mentality. After all, party names change in our country, but the unity of understanding of our political leaders on this issue never changes. 

Under these conditions and realities, with political parties that are not based on cadre and/or ideology, Turkish politics is going to the polls on May 14th to determine the winner of a political race between two people around the People's and Nation's Alliances. Or to put it more classically, we are faced with a political race that unfolds as if there is a two-party system. In any case, ironically, on the one hand there are right-wing parties rallied around Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the CHP, who claims to represent the leftist tradition. On the other side, we have a set of left-right parties gathered around AKP leader Erdoğan, who claims to represent the right-wing tradition, which is an extension of the conservative-religious tradition. If you were a worker, you would probably say that neither of them represents me. The same is true if you are a capital owner. If you are religious, there is a political distribution that confuses you. It is the same if you are a pure nationalist. Even if you embrace ethnic nationalism, the situation is complicated. If you are a social democrat, CHP and DSP are fighting on different wings. Indeed, the atmosphere of the May 14th elections presents us with a vague picture of a political race.

This political race is clearly based on a political partisanship based on self-interest. Unlike previous elections, this race for political advantage seems to be a candidate to shape the Turkish bureaucracy in terms of its winner. This is because, as a reflection of the power of political power, the Turkish bureaucracy has also undergone a transformation in recent years. The traditional discourse is that the elected political power is gone, while the appointed 'army of civil servants' is here to stay. However, the type of bureaucrat or civil servant embodied in Roberto Michels' discourse "The bureaucrat easily and sincerely believes that he knows the needs of the masses better than they do!" has almost disappeared from the Turkish state life. This function has been entrusted to politics. 

From now on, the only institution that determines the bureaucracy and technocracy in our country is the political mechanism. In Turkey, the entry, promotion, duties, responsibilities and powers of the bureaucracy, although formally functioning according to specific and detailed rules, have evolved into a structure dependent on politics. The widespread public opinion is that the political power projects its entire presence into the bureaucracy from the moment of entry. Even a cursory glance at social media can give us all enough insight to see the frightening extent to which claims that it is impossible to get a job without a 'reference' have reached. 

The new expectation in Turkish society is that the 'army of civil servants', especially in the top management mechanism, is now determined by political preferences. As such, there is an expectation that in the event of a possible change of government, as is the case in the United States, those serving in this stratum will also change. However, while the US has a staff of 4,000 people who change with the President, in a country like Turkey, with a population of one quarter of the US population, there are assessments that almost four times as many people could change. This undeniable reality is frightening even for those who work in the bureaucracy and expect to be promoted on merit. With the 2017 amendments being implemented under Erdoğan's leadership in 2018, I believe that this is the political-bureaucratic picture that we are facing, unfortunately, or that it has evolved in this direction. I believe that this change in the bureaucratic structure (without making a judgment as to whether it is right or wrong) is a natural result that emerged as an extension of 2017. Undoubtedly, some of you reading these lines may characterize this situation as a break from the classical bureaucratic structure embodied in Weberism, the transformation of bureaucracy into an instrument of sovereign power similar to Marxist theory, or even 'bureaucratic corruption' in general. I will not go into such evaluations, which deserve a separate discussion, in this article in order not to prolong this article any further.

In the end, there are two main figures that stand out before May 14: Kılıçdaroğlu, who wants to represent change, and Erdoğan, who is focused on preserving the status quo to the end. We are heading to an election that has been reduced to a race between these two political leaders. The 2017 narrative dictates that the most important political institution is the ruling power, which finds its identity in the person of the President. Erdoğan has already demonstrated a leadership that prefers to successfully demonstrate to all of us through his five years in power between 2018 and 2023 that this is the case and that it cannot be different. Whether we like it or not, there is only one office in Turkey that is politically responsible for everything: The office of the Presidency. In other words, the One Man system or order. Every other person or institution inevitably takes a back seat in the current structure.

In an election under these circumstances, do you think it is no longer important to be elected as an MP, without prejudice to the parliamentary post? As a somewhat apolitical person, as far as I can see, it doesn't matter who is elected as an MP. If the current structure is preserved, in a way, even the Grand National Assembly of Turkey does not matter much, except for its formal existence. The Parliament, one of the three pillars of democracy, is nowadays almost second only to the Judiciary. Yet, isn't the Parliament the main political institution in a country where the will of the people is reflected? While the Parliament's foremost duty, the Legislative power it exercises on behalf of the people, should be considered the most decisive and important power in a state, do you think that this power is no longer needed? 

The Turkish Parliament, which is home to such an important function in terms of legislating and representing the people, has necessarily become a secondary institution with the Presidential system that was passed after the major amendment in 2017. A different situation was not envisaged. The power to issue decrees with the force of law (decree-laws) granted to the President by law has, in practice, led to the President largely fulfilling the legislative function normally expected of parliament. The decree-law method, which is a more practical and faster way of legislating, has undoubted technical limitations, but it provides the President with a source of power and convenience so attractive that whoever occupies the office of the President can easily resort to it.

I am of the opinion that the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the fundamental institution that founded the Republic of Turkey, should be disturbed by this situation. 103 years ago, 103 years ago, when the Ottoman Assembly of Deputies effectively ceased to exist on March 16, the Grand National Assembly, which was reincarnated in Ankara on April 23, became the source of legitimacy and the main pillar of our struggle for the War of Independence. 

Taking my cue from Aristotle, who played an important role in rooting the culture of democracy, I would like to draw your attention to a point that political institutions in a pluralist democracy should be given the importance they should have. If a state is alive, the wisdom of this is that it cannot go further than one place in terms of moving towards total unity. In other words, it is not fully united. In other words, it is the preservation of differences, and those who are different continue to exist within that state structure. When the state apparatus for total unity goes beyond the sensitive point, it either disappears or becomes a bad state. 

It is as if the harmony in music becomes one voice or the rhythm becomes one beat in the functioning and political mechanism of the state. Depending on your taste in music, monophony may be enough for you, but the music that is accepted worldwide is polyphonic music. The coexistence and harmony of different sounds of polyphonic music is a richness. I believe that the existence of talented maestros who lead the most beautiful music from these voices and who change flags every now and then through elections is more than enough to make our state eternal. 

In this respect, I believe that the Turkish Parliament, which is one of the three pillars of democracy and the source of legitimacy in the true sense, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which is the epitome of our national sovereignty, should be given the opportunity to exercise the power it deserves, and that the true polyphonic music should be listened to rather than monophonic music. 

Today, the founding day of the Grand National Assembly, is of great importance for our political history and our culture of democracy. Happy 103rd anniversary of April 23rd National Sovereignty and Children's Day!

References:

Kışlalı A.T. (1987). Siyaset Bilimi. Ankara Üniversitesi Basın-yayın Yüksekokulu Yayınları No:9. Ankara

Güzel H.C. (Editör). (1998). Yeni Türkiye. Cilt II. Siyasal Sistem, Demokrasi ve Cumhuriyet. Ankara