Where politics will go from Yeni Kapı? V.U.Arslan

By attending the rally in Yeni Kapı, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu have not surprised us at all. This is a coherent move with his politics of keeping up with right to ensure more votes and support. He thinks that we should join the national unity and solidarity mood not to draw reaction as a “spoilsport”. Eventually, after RTE insisted on, he couldn’t resist the pressure and he will take his place at Yeni Kapı at the expense of drawing reaction from the party base.

Might he be thinking that RTE is really weak and needs a social agreement regime? So RTE is going to sort of partly share the power with CHP! KK is not a really a bright man, but I don’t think he has gone crazy. If that was the case he would have jumped on the first proposal instead of changing attitude when he is forced to. Let alone, there are obvious developments that RTE will turn his former attitude after finishing the FETÖ purge. One must be blind not see these.

1)Salvos like “Whether they want or not, we will build the Artillery Barracks to Gezi Park” are continuing after the coup attempt. This is the proof that RTE’s tension and polarization tactics will come back after a while.

2) HDP are marginalized systematically, they are announced to be non-national and the omnibus bill draft that paves the way for the HDP municipalities to be transferred to a trustee have been dispatched to the parliament. These developments are clear signs that the irreconcilable manner towards the Kurdish question will continue. RTE will take action to start a new offensive campaign via the Kurdish question. A sensational action of PKK might rationalize an anti-FETÖ operation towards HDP, KESK and all leftist popular opinion.

3) In the period started with the state of emergency announcement, torture has become legitimate once again; in the witch hunt many leftist-socialist elements have been detained as well. Legal system has been suspended and the return of death penalty is frequently expressed. And a factitious state of alert is being kept alive for the sake of this period to continue.

4) Monopolization of power centers in the state and establishing the one man regime have been accelerated in the period after the coup attempt.

Transformations within the jurisdiction, army and high bureaucracy have been carried out in this chaos. Despite all of these KK went to the rally at Yeni Kapı and legitimized RTE and state of emergency. Similar to Bahçeli he is reducing himself into a RTE-supporting position and he is taking responsibility for the period after.

What is the Social Agreement Story?

Social agreement story is nothing but the nation uniting under the RTE leadership. It is not an indication of RTE’s weakening, on the contrary it is indication that RTE is accepted as a national chief by every section of the society including the opposition. By going to the rally at the Yeni Kapı, KK is becoming an instrument of this story. Some will claim that KK’s talk at the rally is important. Even if he speaks at the rally he won’t be able to deliver any speech apart from obscure messages and references. After all, the visual media which have a great influence over the public is under control nearly by 100%. Regardless of the KK’s messages at the rally, the desired message is already been given and will be given to the society. Social Agreement has another meaning: Desperate in foreign policy, RTE has won the support of the opposition inside. Thus he is seen as a national leader and this increases his negotiation power. The role for the outside is leader role who is powerful, democrat and pluralist at the same time. Forasmuch as, the chief agenda of external pressures on RTE is related to him being authoritarian. Even if he is powerful inside at the moment, he is weak considering the foreign policy and essentially he trusts the room for maneuver developing from Russia. While the indications that USA will not return Gülen to Turkey is getting stronger, RTE needs Russia to seek controlled tension politics with USA. But eventually they don’t have a chance to leave NATO.

We, as class conscious workers and youth, have to only trust ourselves. We have witnessed that Putin have changed dramatically for one’s self interest or we have seen that USA doesn’t hesitate to give the country up to FETÖ’s hands. For a future in this country, we shouldn’t forget that we can only win it only by extending the socialist organization and by a stubborn struggle.

Çeviri: Anıl Ersoy