Veysi Sarısözen
In his column yesterday, Cumhuriyet writer Orhan Bursalı wrote: “The Palace and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are at a crossroads. Either it will sign off on a process that will completely destroy itself, or it will accept handing over power if necessary. Of course, there are steps it will take to stay in power. Policies to gain the support of the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party and İmralı [Prison Island]. Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) chair Devlet Bahçeli’s grip on power is virtually dependent on İmralı and the DEM Party.”
Since October last year, most writers close to the Republican People’s Party (CHP) have been making similar claims. If it weren’t for the DEM Party, they would topple Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in one blow—but unfortunately, the DEM Party exists.
If, before the day Bahçeli shook hands with members of the DEM Party, you had taken to the streets aiming for early elections—as you are doing now—you would have found the DEM Party by your side, just as in the local elections. But you didn’t. Instead, you sought reconciliation with Erdoğan, calling it “normalisation–softening”. While you were searching for this path of reconciliation, the trustee attacks on the DEM Party’s municipalities were escalating, and every day, activists from the DEM Party were being arrested in groups.
Chemical weapons were being used against the People’s Defence Forces (HPG) [the military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK] in Iraqi Kurdistan. Attacks on Rojava [Kurdish-led North and East Syria] with allied militias continued. None of these events made you consider early elections. Now, you claim the DEM Party will support the AKP, even though it was the DEM Party that helped you become the leading party in the local elections.
There is nothing more natural than a party that has just won a local election demanding an early general election. You became the leading party but didn’t call for early elections. Had you done so, the DEM Party would have stood with you. But as soon as the nationalist extremists, the Victory Party (ZP) and the Good Party (İYİ), began spreading fear last October by claiming “Erdoğan will release Apo from prison in exchange for power,” you remembered early elections. From that moment on, you started using your columns to pit the CHP against the DEM Party, shouting: “While we are resisting attacks to topple Erdoğan through early elections, the DEM Party is helping Erdoğan run and win again in exchange for political bribes,” creating an ugly uproar.
At this stage, it is a good thing that Özgür Özel and his colleagues are keeping their distance from the noise made by you columnists and baton-wielding retired generals on TV. It’s precisely because they keep their distance and leave the door open for an alliance with the DEM Party that the government has declared war on the CHP. Look again at this strange parallel: Erdoğan attacks the DEM Party–CHP alliance, imprisons Ekrem İmamoğlu and his colleagues on the grounds of “urban consensus”, and you, too, attack the DEM Party, thereby undermining such a “Turkey alliance”.
Use your head: say, for example, that elections will be held a year from now. I agree. There should be early elections in a year. Your early election campaign is your right. Carry on. But also consider what may happen in the year leading up to those elections. If you think these events can be prevented a year from now, you are mistaken. The first signal came with the attack on Özgür Özel during Sırrı Süreyya Önder’s funeral. Imagine that such signals could multiply over the next year. The man who killed two of his own children could have attacked Özgür Özel that day intending to kill him. If he had succeeded, Turkey might have been dragged to the brink of civil war. Apart from forcing Erdoğan towards democratisation immediately, there is no way to hold early elections under democratic conditions.
Yes. Hold rallies every Wednesday in an Istanbul district, and each week in a different province. Strive to increase your votes. But apart from those two days of rallies, use the other five days of the week to push your party to work in Parliament alongside the DEM Party, helping bring this unnamed and legally baseless process onto solid legal ground, and pushing for steps toward democratisation and peace.
And once again, start thinking clearly about what the “Third Way” actually means: the Kurdish people are a people who have proven that they stand with those who recognise and implement their democratic rights—not someday in the distant future, but now—and against those who do not. The only way out of the crisis dragging Turkey into chaos is to solve the Kurdish question. On this issue, a dialogue initiated by the CHP with the AKP in the current unnamed process would be far more fruitful than the DEM Party’s dialogue with the AKP. When a sensible nationalist party steers its early election campaign toward such a “peace and democratisation” dialogue, through its writings and speeches, it will also have fulfilled the duties of “patriotism”.
Veysi Sarısözen is a journalist, writer, and former leader of the Communist Party of Turkey, known for his advocacy on Kurdish issues and contributions to leftist political discourse.
