Shifting Centres and Dead-Ends in Turkey

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Published on Monday, 15 September 2014 01:40

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1035 .... September 12, 2014
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Shifting Centres and Dead-Ends:
An Analysis of the Presidential Election in Turkey

Ezgi Yildiz

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the first publicly elected President of Turkey in the history of the Republic, winning 52 per cent of the votes at the presidential elections of August 10. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, joint candidate of the CHP (secularist, so-called centre-left) and the MHP (nationalist, centre-right), finished second with 38 per cent of the vote. Selahattin Demirtaş of HDP (pro-Kurdish, left) came in third with 9.6 per cent of the votes.

The August 10 elections illustrated well the conundrum of Turkish politics and the success of Erdoğan's AKP in shifting the centre of Turkish politics to the right. An evident outcome of this election was Erdoğan's clear win in the...

first round, which rendered him the first President elected by popular vote, a fact upon which he is likely to base the (il)legitimacy of his actions as President. A shift in the centre of politics to the right, however, has been a subtle and systematic change that not only played into Erdoğan's hands but also left many voters with the frustration of not being represented by the opposition parties.

Erdoğan's success in winning the heartlands of Turkey, and thereby the election, is a disappointment that many secularist and leftist Turks sadly have become accustomed to over the years. Another disappointment, which they have seen time and time again, is the weak-willed policies of the main opposition party. The Republican People's Party (CHP), officially a social-democratic party, has long ceased to have any connection with the left in order to compete with AKP's rightist and Islamist policies. It lost its breath in chasing AKP's shadow with a view to mirror AKP's success. Its decision to support Ihsanoğlu, a theologian and former Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is just another illustration of this stillborn strategy.

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