Burak Güzel
Sunday the first of November, a whopping 87.2% of Turkey’s population went to vote at the national elections. Not everybody expected that the AKP – president Erdoğan and PM Davutoglu’s party – would pull such a convincing victory out of the bag after a failure in July, and would have the ability to form a government on its own. But what are the consequences of the last results?
Five months ago, on the 7th of July, the Turkish citizens went to vote again. This time however – the first time in 13 years – the AKP (The Justice and Development Party) lost their parliamentary majority, which meant that they had to form a coalition government. I never expected a coalition to be formed and just as I expected, during the five months that PM Davutoglu had, he couldn’t form a coalition. This resulted in new elections, scheduled for the beginning of November.
Ten percent increase in 5 months, how could that happen?
If we take a quick look at the statistics, we can see that the AKP has almost 10% more votes compared to the general elections in July. The general elections in July, with a major decline of its votes compared to previous years, were a nightmare for the AKP. This resulted in a rise for the remaining three big parties (CHP, MHP and HDP). The most important question here is how they went from losing a fifth of their votes to a rise of 10 % in such a short of time?
In my opinion, the last couple of months I have seen the AKP taking a more nationalist perspective in certain events, which resulted in getting more votes of nationalist citizens, who before preferred the MHP (Nationalist Action Party). One of those examples is that the AKP broke the ceasefire and claimed the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party, who have been recognized as a terrorist organization by the USA and the EU) as public enemy number one.
Becoming medieval dictator or just a false statement?
All of these “policies” worked out in favor of the AKP, and we have seen that Erdoğan reclaimed his “throne”. But will this man turn his back on the democratic rules to become a powerful medieval dictator?
Being not the biggest fan of Erdoğan’s politics – unlike many of my Turkish friends –, I have always found it hard to call him a dictator. Many people question why he is that popular with the Turkish population across the planet. First things first, the Turkish people are very known for their patriotistic – closing in to chauvinistic – behavior. On top of that, no man can deny the fact that we –the Turkish people – have never witnessed a prime minister responsible for so much demographic and economic change. If I bring back some statistics again, we see a decrease of the inflation in Turkey from 32% to 9% since Erdoğan became a PM, the number of universities has doubled, education until a certain age has become free and so on. The only person that comes close to Erdoğan’s achievements is Erbakan.
But, just like any politician, Erdoğan also has received a bunch of criticism. Whether it is about the freedom of press problem (being “responsible” for the imprisonment of many journalists) or the fact that he has a short temper (2009 World Economic Forum incident), he is a controversial politician in my opinion.
The best for Turkey
The following part is my personal opinion of the political situation in Turkey for the last 15 years. Not living in Turkey has had a big impact on my opinion.
Like I’ve said, I am not a big fan of Erdoğan because he doesn’t always respect the democratic rules. Sometimes, I also feel like the AKP’s opinion doesn’t match with my opinion, especially when they make statements about Kurdish people. There are other things which I do not agree with, like Erdoğan wanting an American type of government, (with just a president and no MP), and the multiple scandals in which his family (more likely his son) has been involved. Because I like to wish the best for Turkey, I would still vote on the AKP. I find the ideology of the CHP matches my own way of thinking, but I certainly do not believe that they would have made the drastic changes which the AKP is responsible of. Just a simple example: the value of the Turkish Lira has now already increased. Me hoping and wishing the best for Turkey is the reason why I would vote for the AKP, not for its ideology.