We’re only five weeks away from April 16, when the candidates for the new president of Turkey will be announced. According to the rules, the new president has to be elected within 10 days of April 16. While the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) continues to keep silent on its name(s), the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is moving ahead under the assumption that Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have himself elected president.
The CHP’s main claim and grievance is that Erdogan is not qualified to be president because he has problems with the fundamental values of the republic.Whatever the outcome of the presidential election in April, the CHP position, shared by like-minded groups and individuals, is indicative of an ideological mentality that has long paralyzed Turkish politics and society. Some people declare openly and sincerely that they are the only owners of the republic. Anyone who claims otherwise is declared a traitor, an enemy of the republic. Anyone who dares to question their brand of the “fundamental values of the republic” is denounced as an outcast and collaborator. What lies behind this belligerent position is what I call ideological opposition. It is based on the assumption that the republic exists for certain people and that they’re the sole proprietors. It assumes that the republic can never change, evolve and adopt itself to new social, economic and political realities. It looks at Turkish politics from the vantage point of the “republican elite” and considers electoral democracy a dangerous game for the republic. It was this mentality that was used to justify the four major military coups in Turkey since 1960. Ideological opposition is different from political opposition. Political opposition is what normal political actors do through legitimate means. All political actors within and outside the parliament have the right to object to the way the ruling party runs the country or certain legislation they propose or certain agreements they sign. This is done within the legitimate boundaries of parliamentary democracy. If a political party has serious problems with the ruling government, it raises the issue in the parliament. In this sense, political opposition is vital for a healthy democratic system. Ideological opposition, represented chiefly by the CHP and its satellite partners in the media, goes beyond legitimate opposition within the limits of parliamentary democracy. Its frame of reference is not the parliament or even the constitution but the imaginary boundaries of the republic as they define them. The target is not the proper functioning of representative democracy but creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. The most effective tool is to speak in terms of the vital future of the republic, the threats of disintegration, the inevitable end of the country, etc. The target audience of this belligerent rhetoric is the powers that be, what we call in Turkey the deep state, and, of course, those who have the guns in Turkey. There is a third type of opposition. It is what I call the anti-status quo opposition. It is different from both political and ideological opposition because it does not use the tools of intimidation against its opponents and does not complain to the army or other actors to garner support. The anti-status quo opposition is based on a reformist agenda to address the most divisive issues of Turkish society. These include civilian-army relations, the religion-secularism debate, the Kurdish problem, freedom of faith and expression, the extent of human rights, minority rights and a host of other key issues. The anti-status quo opposition fights to find a modus vivendi for these problems within the legitimate means of democracy. The AK Party government has been successful to the extent to which it has assumed this identity of being the anti-status quo party in Turkey. People have felt the closest to the AK Party at times when it has been able to speak out against the deep status