AKP Government's tactic to get people to accept the ‘the lesser of two evils’ will not succeed

Next week is going to mark 18 years of AKP rule.

During the past 18 years the AKP government domestic, foreign, economic, education and health policies have all come close to hitting ‘against a brick wall’.

1) Economic policy: Following its 18 years of rule the AKP government has doubled its economic debt and the Central Bank reserves are showing a deficit of 40 million dollars which has forced the government to accept the failure of its economic policy.

2) Domestic policy: The government which has placed the jurisdiction, laws and enforcement in  the hands of one man has come to accept that it is necessary to make ‘judiciary reforms’ and ‘reforms in freedoms’. 

3) Foreign policy: The government which adopted a foreign policy centred around a ‘new Ottomanist’ approach did not shy away from making threatening statements against Europe and America through statements which started with "Oi Europe!, Hey America!" and continued to make anti-imperialist statements.

The government viewed itself as the defender of the religious community against Europeans and the Americans. The recent blockages in government's policies has forced it to change its statence againts these two regions. Mr Erdogan, declared in his partys Batman regional congress; 

In addition to his expansionist new Ottomanist foreign policy, President Erdogan appears to be  making a noisy anti-imperialist propaganda accompanied with rhetoric such as "Oi Europe!, Hey America!", "Turkey as the saviour of the ummah", "Turkish army as the last army of the ummah" etc. He stated in his party's Batman regional congress that “We see ourselves nowhere else but in Europe. We plan to build our future with Europe. We intend to use our long standing close relations with America to resolve regional and global issues”. Such statements imply that the government's foreign policy is also left in a tight corner.

WHY ARE ‘REFORM’ DECLARATIONS IMPORTANT?

Erdoğan and his team seems to appear as if they have accepted the reality of the challenges and are trying to calm the reactions and create an expectation in society that these problems can be resolved through ‘reforms’. (...) However, the past 18 years of AKP rule has shown that their ‘promise for reforms’ has always resulted in ‘counter-reforms’. With such poor track record, a great majority of people see AKP’s promise of reforms as new ‘counter reforms to come’. Nonetheless, the mere fact that, Mr Erdogan is making declarations of a need ‘to overcome the issues in economics, personal freedoms and law through reforms’ is significant in suggesting the government's failure in its policies to date.

Because a typical characteristic of one-man rule is their reluctance to accept failure. They even use their biggest weakness as a means of propaganda to show that it was a necessary step paving the way for success. Thus, the AKP government, despite its major setbacks in their policies, continue to praise themselves, whilst accusing the opposition as creating the issues they are battling.

They blame the ministers and bureaucrats for poor policies.... but the single person holding power is trying to save face, standing with all his might, being the untouchable man leading everything.

ERDOĞAN IS WILLING TO FACE ANY HARDSHIP AS LONG AS HE STAYS IN POWER BUT......

The state we have reached is one that the spear has become too big to fit in a bag, meaning that it has become difficult to hide the truth, and it is going deeper and deeper into the flesh of the people. Hence, the number of people who believe the black propaganda around the invincibility of the one man rule is eroding fast. This means that it is not as easy for the government to garner the results from its reform propaganda as it has previously been.

The fact that Bahceli, the head of the nationalist MHP party and the governments close ally, has made statements in support of one of Turkey’s most notorious Mafia leaders, Alaattin Çakıcı, is a clear indication that he will not tolerate even any so-called reforms. Coupled with the not so loud complaints within his party, Erdogan is likely to find himself in a tricky position.

Hence, it is possible to argue that Erdogan might be forced to accept any hardship in order to protect his ‘one man rule’ and to ‘hold on to power’.

However, the current situation in Turkey seems to suggest that it may not be easy to get the support of the parties in his Presidential Alliance, conditioned on Erdogan’s "one man rule" and his grip on power.

TO BE AWARE OF THE FACT THAT ‘THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS IS THE BIGGEST EVIL OF ALL’

The alliance between parties does not necessarily mean an alliance of their mass bases. The results of the most recent elections also show that many voters chose to vote for a democratic line rather than  in line with the calls of the parties they support. This indicates that it may become increasingly difficult to reflect the alliances between parties into votes in the next elections.

Hence, the possibility of a chaos in the political picture, the signs of which are evident, will not manifest itself only among different parties of the presidential and opposition alliances but their separate bases, too, and create new possibilities for a more democratic alliance. Thus, there is a stronger possibility than before that we may see the emergence of a "people's alliance" around the demand for a  secularist and democratic Turkey.

In short, considering the current developments  in the political field, Erdogan would want to  persuade the opposing alliance and the oppositional forces to align with the ‘lesser of two evils’.

However, the history of class struggles and the recent history of our country show that ‘the lesser of two evils is the biggest evil of all’.

There is more reason today than ever before for the defenders of democracy to believe that the awakening sections of people have the necessary accumulation of consciousness not to submit to the attempts at getting them to go for the ‘lesser of two evils’.