What is wrong with AKP’s factory settings?

A “return to factory settings” is a concept that dominated the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) agenda after the June 7 elections. However, from that day on, seemingly, the possibility of going back to factory settings does not make a portion of the AK Party happy. Somehow, they see it as a “betrayal” to return to factory settings. 

When you say, “The AK Party’s founding ideals should not be forgotten,” this irks them as if it were the most rotten idea in the world. They jump to their feet with a chlorotic face.  
  
When you denigrate the fighting, discriminatory, exclusionary and otherizing language, they lose control of themselves; they attack you as if you have cursed them badly. 

When you mention the need felt for “conciliatory politics,” they panic as if you had asked for evil to come.
 
When you recall with goodness and yearning the era when the AK Party moved Turkey up the social ladder with its democratization reforms, they immediately become very touchy, in a “Did you say something about me?” mode. 

When you are praising and saying, “The spirit of 2002 was a beautiful mood,” when you praise past policies and practices, they start defending to the death some of the debatable styles of governing today. 

When you say, “Criticism is a blessing, why should the AK Party be deprived of it instead of benefiting from it?” then again they lose their minds, they immediately blacklist you, categorizing criticism together with animosity. 

The addressee of the 49.5 percent vote is the politicians, not the journalists who supported them. However, these newcomer types who have emerged in the “new media” act as if they were political actors, as if the people have given them the power to represent them, to talk in the name of the government, to dangle a sword over the heads of their rivals. 

You must remember that these kinds of corruption and disinformation were the illnesses of the old Turkey…
 
Wasn’t it that this country was to be ruled by politicians, not by the military, academia or presumptuous writers?  

Wasn’t it that that era had gone? Didn’t those days remain in the past when the media was electing prime ministers and toppling them? Wasn’t it that the AK Party freed the nation’s will from these interventions, bullying and molestations? 

You expect an answer from the government but then those brazen-faced will-stealers are there to answer you. 

I have a few more questions, very simple ones. 

But before that, a compulsory warning: When I ask the AK Party to take care of the government that the nation has entrusted them with, to protect the 49.5 percent, to look after every voter’s rights no matter who they voted for, I want to skip the go-betweens  and ask the government, the real politicians, as a voter… 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu gave some messages in the first closed session of his parliamentary group in the new legislative year. Is there anything wrong in them? 

What is wrong in saying, “If a difference - not huge gaps - only a difference occurs between my income and assets, if my income is not enough to explain my expenditure, then call me to account?” 

Then turning to deputies and asking, “However, if you cannot explain it, no matter who you are, I will call you to account;” what is wrong with this? 

The intention in returning to the factory settings of the AK Party; isn’t it all together this stance? 

Didn’t the AK Party start as the movement of the shared wisdom and the virtuous? 

Now, when you cannot tolerate even a small amount of criticism, are offended by the smallest warning, then aren’t you contradicting your own values and your founding philosophy? 

When you set out you promised to fight corruption, poverty and bans, didn’t you? Now, remaining true to your word, what is wrong with returning to your factory settings? What kind of a game, conspiracy and betrayal can ever be hidden behind this?