Critical Period for Turkey: Let's Meet at the Ballot Box

Dear friends, in the elections held on May 14, 2023, even though the votes of the ruling party decreased slightly, it managed to maintain its superiority in the TBMM as the People's Alliance. In the presidential election, however, the results of the polling companies proved to be wrong. Although the results of the election were left to the second round, the current President Erdoğan completed the first round in first place with 49.51 percent of the vote, above expectations. As a result of the evaluation of the objections, Erdoğan's vote rate was revised to 49.28. This result signaled that the ballot box would be re-established on May 28, 2023 to determine the President of the Republic. Even if the parliamentary arithmetic is the way the government wants it to be, the real big election in this system, where the executive power is very strong, is the presidential election. Therefore, we can say that the second round of elections will be very decisive for Turkey's future. Before moving on to what we have to say about this election, let's try to evaluate the picture that emerged as a result of the election process.

During the election process, the People's Alliance pursued a perception strategy that had no connection with reality. Especially with the media power being disproportionately under the control of the government, it was not difficult for discourses that do not reflect the truth/incompletely reflect the truth to find a response in the eyes of the public. However, this does not explain all aspects of reality. Another dimension of the issue is the public's belief in Erdoğan despite everything. This belief has socio-psychological and sociological foundations. Without understanding these, blaming people who believe does not make it easier for knowledge to transcend the boundaries of belief. 

Belief creates very strong walls against knowledge. The stronger the foundations that support belief, the more difficult it is to overcome these walls. Erdoğan is a leader who, through his rhetoric and actions, manages very well to swim in the patrimonial and patriarchal waters of administrative science. To say that Erdoğan's leadership is the only factor that strengthens this perception in the society is to ignore all other factors and is problematic. However, by analyzing only Erdoğan, we are addressing only one aspect of the issue. In other words, we are not discussing external determination, lawlessness and other factors. In the end, we can say that there is a perception of Erdoğan representing the "father" figure in society. In fact, sometimes a simple image can clearly express complex problems. The expression "he is my father, he beats me, he loves me" of a person with a disfigured face is very suitable for describing the devotion felt towards the leader who has assumed the role of "father" in society.  

Especially in terms of disaster management, the whole society failed to understand what happened after the earthquake when the state was buried under the rubble with all its institutions. People who experienced a great disaster threw themselves in fear into the lap of their "fathers", where they felt the safest. Technically, the fact that buildings to be constructed before the aftershocks are over and without adequate scientific studies increase the risks of new disasters has not gone beyond the perception of "father" and the belief in him. The losses caused by the mistakes made and the failure to fulfill the responsibility of being a state adequately have also not been able to penetrate the walls of belief. The problem is basically how, how soon and to which audience information can be provided. For this to happen, it must first be recognized as a public problem and dealt with as part of a public policy. Eliminating the symptoms does not mean eliminating the disease. Nor does the fact that people substitute a person for the state make that person the state. I do not want this to be perceived as a legitimization or affirmation. I prefer it to be understood only as an attempt at scientific interpretation. 

The walls of belief can only be overcome by knowledge if the level of knowledge of the society increases. Not everyone can be informed at the same time, nor can everyone start acting rationally with a different level of consciousness at the same time. This is a very long and painful process for society. What the cadres who founded the Republic tried to do was not only the construction of a nation state. It is also the construction of a conscious and knowledgeable society that this process requires. In other words, it is literally an enlightenment revolution. Otherwise, it is not possible to convince people that sovereignty has passed from the divine to the people. Although we will not go into it at length here, I believe it would be correct to say that the political powers that bowed to the role assigned to Turkey by the global order that emerged after the Second World War laid the foundations of the problems we are experiencing today. Because the problem we are experiencing today is not a question of political preference, but a problem of the nation not being aware of this, contrary to the statement "Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation" in Article 6 of the Constitution. It should also be recognized that all governments after 1945 had a greater or lesser share in the creation of this problem. 

An important factor that can be added to the factor of faith is the pragmatist and opportunistic attitude of individuals on the side of the powerful and their desire to benefit themselves from this. This is most evident in the fact that the ruling party organization in provinces and districts is a center of attraction for immoral people (whether public officials or business people) who seek to gain unfair prestige and office for themselves, while they should have no influence at the state level. The fact that this morally problematic-sounding attitude is considered legitimate by a large segment of the society can be considered as an insightful information in terms of the direction of the need for social change.

The fact that administrators at all levels of state administration support the unlawful demands and preferences of the government, i.e. the unjust use of state power by a certain political group, means the usurpation of the sovereignty belonging to the nation. This situation is more related to the preferences of the leader rather than the belief in the leader as I have tried to explain above. Much has been written on this subject to date, much of it based on documents, and it is directly a matter of law. When the amnesiac state, with all its institutions, regains its memory, the price to be paid will be paid by all those who have committed crimes. But these are not the subject of this article. 

The great economic crisis, the failed disaster management and the earthquake disaster, which caused great losses, have led to a decline in the government's votes, but this is a fraction of what should happen in a conscious society. Whether it is religion or nationalism, faith and the divisive, polarizing politics built on it still seem to be the dominant political determinants in society. According to this assessment, the opposition's strategy, which was based on a positive language with very concrete solution proposals, hit the wall of belief and was ineffective or failed to have the expected impact. Perhaps such a campaign would have been a great success in a society with a high level of consciousness, but the results show that the opposition did not set out with the right analysis. 

Another dimension of the problem is that the untruthful and immoral propaganda of the government on the opposition finds a response in the society. However, I do not want this to create the perception that the opposition is perfect in every aspect. To put it bluntly, what I object to more than the ideological differences of the parties that make up the Millet Alliance is the strategy of entering the elections with a single list. If individual preferences were based on purely rational grounds, this might have been the right option. However, I believe that the Millet Alliance has failed to correctly analyze the society that cannot get out of its belief-based behavior patterns. In other words, voter behavior is largely formed on a plane far from rationality. While it was possible for parties that are ideologically different from each other to create a unifying perception in society, the statements of the officials of the parties in the alliance have made it difficult to achieve this goal. It is understood that some of the sensitivities in society have either not been assessed or have been misjudged.

At this stage, the same society will vote again on May 28th. It is not easy to change perceptions in such a short period of time. Therefore, the opposition's efforts to explain to the public what might happen if the current government is elected seem more consistent. This has several important dimensions. The country's credit risk premium (CDS), which is at the point of economic collapse, has reached over 700 points. In the aftermath of a possible Erdogan victory, it is likely to rise to unimaginable levels. This means that several generations will be paying very heavy interest rates to foreign capital for many years to come. On the other hand, the "refugee issue", which is a huge social problem in the country, is likely to be one of the main determinants of this election. In the face of the opposition's clear position on this issue, the government does not hesitate to openly state that it will not send anyone. However, public dissatisfaction with refugees is very high. The government's open attitude on this issue can be based on two possibilities; either they are too confident in themselves or they want to leave the economic and social collapse in the lap of the opposition.  The government's strategy of turning the country into a cheap labor center, mainly by lowering the average wage level, is definitely to the detriment of Turkish citizens. However, turning the country into a refugee center by creating huge risks is in line with this strategy and can be read as such. 

The second round of elections is a referendum in the true sense of the word, even if it is not called that. There are two reasons for this. The first is to question the public acceptance of this problematic system of governance that started to be implemented in 2018. The second, albeit hypothetical, is to vote on the concerns of the society about the future of the People's Alliance due to the ultra-nationalist and radical religious nature of its components. It would be overly optimistic to expect that if Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu wins the election, everything will suddenly be rosy. However, I am one of those who think that there may be hope for the recovery of the country. The other possibility, in my opinion, is a "hell" scenario. I base this assessment on my sociological, economic and political evaluations. Unlike the first round, the opposition also seems to be adopting the slogan "decide" in the second round, which will be perceived as a referendum by the society. In the end, I hope that everything will be good for the future of my country. For this, I think that it is time not for resentments, resentments, sensitivities, but only and only for the love of homeland. Let's meet at the ballot box so that we don't regret it.