The trauma of Türkiye's left-wing

Turkish opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), has a chairman, but no leader. This reality was heard loud and clear in the first round of presidential elections on May 14, and now in the upcoming second round on May 28. However, it is too late.

The lack of a leader in the CHP may not be a problem for the new generations. Hence their carefree attitude and willingness to vote for “anything.” Yet this lack of care is likely to drive the CHP’s potential electorate – particularly youth – into a “political void.” We will be extensively discussing long after the elections the traumatic outcomes of politicizing at the table, on paper, and based on social media rather than on ideology and tradition.

Similar voids are observed not only at in communities, but at the “state” level as well. Europe and numerous Western countries are now sensing deeply the lack of a “powerful leader.” Our neighbor Greece’s unstable leaders and state of dependency on outside powers is obvious. We saw how expectations that heightened with Alexis Tsipras turned into disappointment. Germany’s political communication power collapsed post-Angela Merkel. Before the French media and public could digest President Emannuel Macron being crushed and dull against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, they faced confrontation by the leaders in Africa, which they used to exploit once-upon-a-time. Americans, who put their hopes in U.S. President Joe Biden to escape Donald Trump, now have a leader who “shakes hands with thin air and forgets he is president.” Everyone can see clearly now that Volodymyr Zelensky, who transferred from a comedy to politics and got Ukraine into war with Russia, is playing political influencer in his khaki-colored top.

Let’s make a sharp turn back to the CHP. The void caused by İsmet İnönü, who “seized” both the CHP, the country’s administration, and founding leader Mustafa Kemal’s legacy following his passing, as a result of his defeat against Adnan Menderes in three consecutive elections as of 1950, is yet to be filled despite the passing years. The CHP has never since then come to power in any election and via democratic means. Its votes could never surpass 25 percent.

Why is the CHP, the founder and protector of the Republic, and the engineer of the state systematic, not accepted by the public?

The first answer is very clear: They are unable to convince the public, because they display hostility towards the people who choose not to elect them, who do not share their opinions. The CHP’s name includes “people,” but it is disposed to nurture hostility towards the people. It is this very CHP disposition on which the insults after May 14 aimed at the earthquake victims, and the people who voted for Erdoğan are based.

I will share two quotes from the late Bülent Ecevit, a former president, in reference to whom the CHP now say, “We learned a lot from him. He was our dark boy.”

The first is from his initial statement when he became CHP chair after deposing İnönü in congress: “Those who believe revolution can be achieved not with the people, but based on intellectual crews outside and above the people, cannot be with us.”

This self-criticism by Ecevit was really an explanation of what the left-wing in Türkiye think revolution is. The İnönü-led CHP’s understanding of revolution was, “if the people do not elect us, the military will conduct a coup, and we will end up running the country anyway.” Ecevit took over the CHP leadership to wipe out this mindset. He achieved his objective in the 1973 election, and Ecevit, who made the CHP win for the first time, wanted to destroy the “Chief of General Staff rule the country” idea. However, the army was not pleased with this CHP. Thus, after the Sept. 12, 1981 coup, Ecevit carried over the “national left” politics he failed to do in the CHP to the Democratic Left Party (DSP).

There was a Social Democratic People's Party (SHP) (CHP) criticism that Ecevit made years later, and it points to the present times: “A party that carries to Parliament on its back those who openly state they want to divide Türkiye for the sake of gaining a little more vote in the southeast, cannot claim heirship to the Republican People’s Party.”

Deniz Baykal, who came to the CHP’s leadership when the party was re-established in 1992, he presented the political charisma needed to lead the Turkish left. Yet, he never received the support that is given to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu today. His struggles to protect the CHP from outside intervention were revealed years later. Despite being a politician and statesman who counteracted Erdoğan, despite his articulateness, he was pushed to withdraw from office via plots.

The lack of a leader was exposed when Kılıçdaroğlu was brought to office after Baykal. Though Kılıçdaroğlu became the “Turkish left’s forced hope” with the pride he takes in his past despite his heavy baggage and unsuccessful bureaucracy, his inarticulacy, and inadequacy against Erdoğan, it could not make him the "Turkish left’s leader.”

Kılıçdaroğlu is the presidential candidate of an alliance never before seen in Turkish politics. He is a candidate over which completely different ideologies and politicians agree. In other words, he is the implementer of an engineering operation. However, he is never a leader. If he was a leader, he would have been a presidential candidate with campaigns tailored to his politics rather than being an actor in whose name campaigns are organized, and who acts upon agencies’ ideas.

The origin of the Turkish left and its components’ anti-Erdoğan sentiment is great jealousy. The electorate, who is stuck between the inadequacy of their candidate and Erdoğan’s leadership charisma, thus has no choice but to be enslaved by various plots, lies, and slanders. This is why they cling onto figures like Mansur Yavaş and Ekrem İmamoğlu, who do not share the CHP sentiment, but act like they do as per the conjuncture, only to experience great disappointment.

It seems that if Erdoğan wins on May 28, it will be another great victory paving the way for the Turkish left and the CHP electorate to escape this vicious cycle and start all over again.