Democracy won, Turkey lost

Turkey’s election results have already created political and economic uncertainty in the country and there is an anxious wait to see what will happen now. With other parties’ initial adamant refusal to form a coalition with the president’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been ruling the country for 12 years, the situation looks grim.

Despite the AKP’s disappointing results, it appears to be adapting a position that assures political stability in order to preserve the achievements that the country has made over the past decade. Initial statements from other parties did not appear to show the same level of awareness, which could be down to their inexperience in terms of ruling a country, with the exception of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) which was part of the coalition government under which Turkey suffered from the severe economic crisis of 2000-2001 as a result of which the coalition collapsed and the country had to run for early elections in 2002. All parties forming the then coalition government, including the MHP, failed to pass the 10 per cent election threshold in early elections and thus did not have any representatives in the parliament. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP came first in that election and secured the majority of the seats in parliament, enabling it to form the government.

The current election results are inevitably pushing Turkey to consider a coalition government for the first time since 2002. It appears that the achievements made in the last 12 years have not been enough for the prospect and benefits of a majority government to outweigh the implications of a coalition government for the voters. The last time that this happened Turkey paid for it with a huge economic crisis and had to beg for funding from the IMF.

With strong determination to transform Turkey politically, legally and economically, the AKP made a number of substantial changes by improving the economy dramatically, restricting the military’s power and amending the political mistakes of the past by introducing new laws to broaden freedoms for ethnic and religious minorities. The party and its courageous leader did not refrain from taking risks in order to end some denial policies.

In fact, it was one of these risks that Erdogan took that led to the irreparable crack between him/AKP and the Gülen movement. Yes, the early onset of the peace process which was initiated by the efforts of Turkey’s National Intelligence Unit (MIT) almost resulted in the arrest of MIT Chief Hakan Fidan, had he not been advised by Erdogan not to comply with prosecutors’ instructions for him to testify. The prosecutors who had called Fidan were reported to be linked to the Gülen movement and had he complied with their request to testify over what he was being accused of – facilitating negotiations with a terrorist organization – he would have been arrested, which would have paved the way for Erdogan. This effort failed after Erdogan instructed the MIT head to not leave its headquarters and from thereon in the crack became wider and wider. Erdogan made it clear that whatever the risk and loss it takes, he and his party will persevere with the peace process, which involves the introduction of a number of long-denied rights to Kurds. His determination to address the injustices affecting Turkey’s Kurdish population became clear from his first days in office; his first action was to lift the state of emergency in the South East of Turkey which had given the military the power to rule arbitrarily in the region with no accountability.

Looking at the election results, the votes that the AKP lost – 8.3 per cent – seem to have gone to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the MHP evenly; both have nationalist tendencies. The AKP’s existence in the South-East has almost been eradicated despite the fact that it introduced more rights for Kurds than any government throughout the history of republic. As such, there appears to be huge resentment towards the Kurdish voters in the South-East of Turkey amongst AKP supporters. Some go as far as using terms such as “betrayal” to express their disappointment at the Kurdish electorate. However, what they and most probably Erdogan resent more is the fact that the Gülenist movement, which attempted a legal coup against Erdogan and Hakan Fidan, was seen to be allying with the pro-Kurdish HDP for the sake of weakening AKP’s power in parliament rather than genuinely wanting HDP to pass the election threshold. Despite knowing the Gülen movement’s position regarding Kurdish matters, the HDP did not seem to be bothered by criticisms that it was forming alliances with Gülen, whose newspaper called blatantly for support for the HDP. This incoherence was expected to bounce back from the polls but it appeared to follow further incoherence. This was not the only alliance that lacked coherence. Dogan Media Group, which called Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya a “scumbag” due to him saying that he will be singing a Kurdish song on his new album, and still greets its readers with the motto of “Turkey belongs to Turks”, appeared to be in an alliance with the HDP for the sake of weakening the AKP rather than caring about Kurds or their rights and difficulties.

The general feeling appears to be that the Kurdish people- whose cause is legitimate and who have been victims of Old Turkey – were the last card that the sympathisers of the old regimes could play to turn the tide. In other words, the resentment is that the Kurds were exploited in this election by those who inflicted all the pain on them in the first place.

The fear is that this will have huge repercussions and setbacks for the whole country. The peace process is at stake unless an AKP-HDP coalition can be put together; the HDP’s first comment on this was that it would not agree, even though it is an active partner in the peace process. On the other hand, if the AKP was to form a coalition party with the Nationalist Movement Party, one of the pre-requisites of the MHP would be “ending the peace process”, which will not only have repercussions for the Kurds but also the rest of Turkey. The third scenario, which is a coalition government formed by all of the other parties. This is the least workable because if the Nationalist Movement Party was to form a coalition with the Peoples’ Democratic Party it would signify its collapse.

In any case, an early election appears to be inevitable for political and economic stability. The alternative is already proving to be deadlock, especially given that other parties are already shying away from assuming a constructive responsibility and are demonstrating a wishy-washy stance in this respect.

However, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will need to read and analyse the message from the people carefully and amend the mistakes that have overshadowed all of its achievements to ensure that it gets a majority of the votes. If it fails, another election will just result in further instability and insecurity for Turkey.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.