What will we face after the elections?
I tried to calculate how many times I have voted up until now; including general elections, local elections, by-elections, and referenda. It must be almost 20 by now.
While I am casting my vote, I always think that it should to be known in society that there are people like me who keep a distance from the mainstream political parties, who think there are quite different solutions than the ones presented to us.
On Sunday we will go to the polls once more and we will cast our ballots according to our political preferences. In all the previous elections I had thought that people had made their choice and one should respect it. Naturally, I will respect the outcome of these elections too.
However, this time I cannot believe – no matter how much I want to - that there will be an atmosphere of peace and tranquility prevailing in the country after elections.
First and foremost, because of the efforts of the ruling party and the prime minister, we are going through such a deep segregation that the election results will only confirm this.
According to poll results, the prime minister will emerge the winner of the elections. Everybody seems to be fed up with the prospect of another “balcony speech” from him, because the only thing waiting for us after the elections is nothing more than the current government’s authoritarian tendencies going more wild. Everything that the spokespeople of the ruling party and the prime minister have said during the election campaign makes me think this. It looks as if the fight that erupted between the government and the Gülen community with the bribery and corruption accusations will turn into a witch-hunt.
Not only this, the prime minister has said that after the elections not only the law on the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) but also the Supreme Court of Appeals and the Council of State will also be “handled.” It is not difficult to imagine how this “handling” will be made, considering how the HSYK has recently been made to report to the Justice Ministry.
The final blows will be struck to the separation of powers, which is an indispensable part of a democracy: Turkey will be left to the mercy of a government that will not be balanced by any other constitutional power.
With the MİT law, Turkey will be transferred to an intelligence state similar to the former Baath regimes. And the person leading MİT is one who has been recorded saying, “If needed be, I will send my men over there and have them launch eight missiles into empty fields,” so that, “causes to start a war are produced.”
Problems that may be caused by increasing the powers of an intelligence organization led by an executive who can think this and for this organization to be excluded from the monitoring of the judiciary should scare all of us.
As a leak revealed, the government’s interior minister is able give an order to the governor to “Break the door of the journalist, go in and take him.” The same minister also comforts the police director who insinuates that the order he has received may be against the laws: “Do not worry, even if it is a crime, we will change the law.”
The prime minister is able to threaten businessmen, journalists, anybody who does not think like him in town rallies.
In a democracy, elections relieve the country, lower the political tension and provide people with confidence for the future; however, we now know that in these elections more than half of the country will not feel this way.
We have seen that those who took power through democracy have been looking for authoritarian one-man rule.
I am aware that I am imposing negativity on most of my readers on a Saturday.
Nevertheless, let us know what we are facing, so that we will further defend our right to live in this country, our right to choose our lifestyle, protect our freedom of speech and our demand for a clean public administration free from corruption.
