Since the ruling AKP’s defeat in the March 31 local elections, journalists closely following Ankara politics have been pointing to 'time.'
For the main opposition party (CHP), which won even the municipalities it had not won for 40 years, even 50 years, after its traumatic general election defeat, to evaluate this victory correctly and prepare a new strategy…
And for the ruling party, which has lost the titles of 'the leading party' and 'the only party that can win elections everywhere in the country' that came with all the elections won in 20 years, to digest this situation and try to recover...
Time was needed!
***
Four months have passed since the local elections. In this not-so-little time, we have watched the CHP, the 'ruling party at the local level and the main opposition at the center', and watched the 'normalization' efforts of its chair Özgür Özel (who has recently made statements in response to his predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu because of this) and the evaluations that this effort (according to surveys) has received support.
For the ruling party, the process that was initially described as 'softening' was actually and briefly seen as 'we were already normal, the opposition is trying to come to where we stand'. So much so that while Erdoğan said in his last parliamentary group speech that he found the opposition's stance on foreign policy “noteworthy for the sake of normalization,” he also blamed the same opposition for the poverty experienced by pensioners whose salaries were raised to 12,500 liras: “They don't even let our pensioners near their doors...”
And he is doing this at the same speech…
Obviously, a main opposition that was normalized on 'national (“milli”) issues' was going to be beaten up when it came to 'issues related to the nation itself' and of course because it was holding the majority in the municipalities.
Erdoğan said:
- They broke their pre-election promises to pensioners...
- They did not enforce the law on stray animals...
- They do not pay their debts to the Social Security Institution (SGK)...
Tomorrow who knows what else he’ll say!
***
The main opposition's response to all this came from Özgür Özel. While explaining what he would do against all these moves of the government, Özel also explained what he actually trusted: “That is a thing of the past. They are trying to make people believe by repeating a lie over and over again. People opened their eyes on March 31st. I am a leader who can explain his points to the people. I can explain this, I can explain cutting the money of the municipalities. It's free to try, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”
Could Özgür Özel think that the only reason for the preference to 'vote for the CHP,' which emerged both among all opposition voters in general and among a significant part of the ruling electorate overwhelmed by the economic problems that increased between the two elections, was that he explained his points well to the people?
***
Let's recall that after failing to become the first party in the 2019 local elections but winning Istanbul and Ankara, the most recurring remark in the main opposition party for the next general election was 'whoever wins Istanbul will win Turkey.' Probably not only because the then leader (Kılıçdaroğlu) was not able to explain his point to the people well, but that was not the case in 2023: the general election was lost.
However, on March 31st, not only the metropolitan municipalities were taken, but also the CHP became the leading party after 47 years (counting from Ecevit's victory in 1977). And it is true, the CHP became the first party after nearly half a century as 'CHP'. However, if the issue is 'remembering', the experience of the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP), which became the leading party when the CHP was banned from politics, probably deserves to be remembered as well. With more than 28 percent of the vote in the 1989 local elections, Erdal İnönü's party was the first choice of the electorate with a three-point margin over its closest rival, but two years later, in the early general elections, which were held a year ahead of its normal time, it was the third party.
Can it be forgotten that the reason for the defeat at that time was cited as the 'failure in the municipalities', which the government still loves to repeat frequently in rallies and to remind us with videos?
This claim has been repeated so often by Erdoğan in every election since 2015 that another frequent criticism of the SHP after the 1991 elections has been forgotten: The criticism that the party administration led by İnönü failed to fulfill the requirements of being the party that won most of the municipalities and received the most votes, and that it failed to take advantage of this situation and come to power…
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Of course, we are not talking about the fact that historical events will one day be repeated again and again, that the 'same movie' will be watched again. However, the fact that in 1991, after 10 years of the neoliberal economic order established step by step by the ANAP governments since the coup d'état of September 12, privatizations, and the country's dependence on foreign capital flows; the SHP, which had also won the local elections, failed to take power is probably not an experience that only Erdoğan should remember today.
Don't misunderstand, we are not saying this because we think that the SHP is or should be a party that is radically opposed to all these developments. We only mention it as an example of a 'main opposition' party that failed to come to power despite the damage caused by ANAP policies on the masses: Thinking that it is not too wrong to say that a ruling mind that loves the proposition 'history repeats itself' will try to turn the road in the same direction again tomorrow....
Of course, there are many differences between today's government and the government of the time when Turgut Özal was the President and Mesut Yılmaz was the head of the party. First and foremost, the fact that today's government has much more advantages and the power to make sure that the main opposition party, the CHP, is destined to be 'like the SHP', with one person sitting in all its main seats, is obvious.
From the Kurdish question to 'self-renewal', from the economy to diplomacy, there is a new regime that it has been building step by step since the transition to the Presidential Government System in order to get out of the difficult situations it has fallen into.
There is also a 'political scene' that seems to have been confined to group meetings, press statements, and election rallies until the conditions became what Erdoğan wanted - and as fate would have it, a party now called SHP has rejoined to the scene!
When one thinks about all this, two questions come to mind:
- Will it be enough for Özel to explain his points to the people?
- Why wouldn't Erdoğan be thinking of the SHP and not the CHP?