Analysing the CHP's Presidential Candidate Selection Process
If CHP members have to make a choice between İmamoğlu and Yavaş, the discussions, incidents and fights that may occur during the primary election may harm the CHP.
With the CHP's announcement that a primary election will be held during the candidate selection process, the question of who will be the CHP's presidential candidate has started to be discussed again. Especially two candidates are being emphasised and which one will be the candidate is being discussed. Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mansur Yavaş are two names on the agenda. Let's examine what might happen if one of these names becomes a candidate.
First of all, since both candidates are mayors of metropolitan municipalities, it will be brought to the agenda, especially by the ruling party and its supporters, that they should leave the mayoralty if they become candidates. Even now, this issue is frequently on the agenda of the partisan media. Leaving the presidency early may cause the candidates to be unable to perform the services that increase their support in the eyes of the public. Therefore, an urgent decision may play into the hands of the People's Alliance. The timing of the announcements should be very careful.
It is a separate fact that one of the candidates, Imamoğlu, is under judicial pressure. The fact that an investigation was opened against him even before he finished his speech is an indication that he is being specially followed. It is obvious that if he is announced as a candidate, this pressure will increase and the judgement processes may turn into arrests. Although the support of the aggrieved party may increase in the eyes of the public, it should not be forgotten that there is a risk that he will not be able to become a candidate and will not be allowed to stand for election.
It can be said that İmamoğlu is more advantageous than Yavaş in the process of nominating candidates through the primary election announced by the CHP. If CHP members have to make a choice between İmamoğlu and Yavaş, the discussions, incidents and fights that may occur during the primary election may harm the CHP. The People's Alliance may benefit from this situation and the propaganda ‘Will you entrust the country to them?’ may start.
So what should be done under these circumstances?
In fact, it is quite pointless to discuss the CHP candidate. What is interesting is that both candidates, regardless of who the candidate of the People's alliance is, have the public support to surpass that person. For the People's Alliance, İmamoğlu's candidature is a bigger threat than Yavaş's candidature. Because İmamoğlu draws a politician profile that can receive votes from every region, every sect and every ethnicity. While the CHP has such a candidate, Yavaş's candidature may pose a risk. Because the components of the People's Alliance can attract all the components that Yavaş will have difficulty in getting votes to their side. This is the main reason why such an argument has never been used for Yavaş, while the sword of judgement is in the air for İmamoğlu.
If İmamoğlu becomes a presidential candidate, he has the potential to defeat whoever the candidate of the People's Alliance is, as it has happened 3 times before in Istanbul. Whether the candidate is İmamoğlu or Yavaş, it must be explained to the public that the main policy will be the return of the system to a strengthened parliamentary system. Within this framework, it should be declared that all political parties that support a return to a strengthened parliamentary system from the Turkish-type presidential system, which would lead to totalitarianism, will act together.
During the selection of the presidential candidate through a primary election and the announcement of the candidate, not only the candidate for the next election but also the candidate for the next election should be announced. It should be announced that the candidate who wins the primary election, if he/she wins the presidential election, will transform the system into a strengthened parliamentary system and will be a candidate for the prime ministership in the next election, while the other candidate will be the first presidential candidate of the strengthened parliamentary system. Thus, in the first election to be held, the candidate who loses the primary election will act knowing that he/she will be the presidential candidate in the next election. Since there are two distinguished candidates, the positions that these two candidates will take in the future can be announced together.
This is the best strategy to reduce the possibility of conflicts within the CHP, the possibility of the candidate who is out of the primary election disrupting his/her work, and the possibility of increasing the dosage of criticism from outside.
