The chairman of the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), Devlet Bahçeli, is a man of sums.
He had carefully explained through numbers how the MHP would come to power on its 40th anniversary.
We said this is the limit of what can be managed.
Five years have passed since we said that and the 40th anniversary of the MHP, and it still hasn’t come to power.
Later he divided 49 million by 24 and came up with a number that somehow brought the MHP to power…
Our very own Turgay Güler took this up on a live television broadcast and calculated that sum. Turgay’s sum didn’t match Bahçeli’s sum. Turgay was about to have his primary school diploma revoked.
The day Devlet Bahçeli drew a triangle was the day I knew that Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu would lose the election.
The ceiling Bahçeli sketched for the MHP and CHP (Republican People’s Party) came crashing down on their heads.
The ellipse is Bahçeli’s favored shape for the upcoming elections…
Whenever Bahçeli becomes obsessed with drawing triangles, pentagons and ellipses, I understand that the MHP is set to lose another election.
Every election develops its own unique priorities in the run-up.
With regard to the upcoming June 7 elections the focus is on whether the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party) will attain a majority enabling it to change the constitution, rather than who will come to power.
In the run-up to the elections in 2011, I and two other journalists had met with Israel’s Ambassador to Ankara Gabby Levy.
The ambassador, apart from asking us our predictions, had asked, “It is my understanding that the AK Parti will come to power on its own. But will it attain the majority required to change the constitution?” The AK Parti garnered 50 percent of the vote, but thanks to the election engineering carried out by the YSK (Higher Election Board) it failed to attain the majority enabling it to change the constitution.
They have just one aim as we head for the June 7 elections. That is to prevent the AK Parti from coming to power with a majority that would enable it to change the constitution.
They have realized that the CHP will not achieve anything.
They are relying on Abdullah Öcalan about whom they at one time had printed placards calling him a baby killer, and on the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), who at one time they had thrown out of parliament accusing them of being PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) members.
The HDP has become the greatest source of hope for the White Turks (term used to refer to the urban elite)…
It is being said that the parallel structure (term used to refer to the Fethullah Gülen-led movement) will also back the HDP to impede President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s presidential system.
They will join hands with members of the KCK (Kurdish Communities Union) and conduct an election campaign; the same KCK members who they slapped Israeli-style plastic handcuffs on during anti-KCK operations at one time.
The mastermind has been attempting to bring Qandil and Pennsylvania together for a while. (Qandil is the PKK’s armed mountain base in northern Iraq; and Pennsylvania is a term used to refer to Gülen based on his current place of residence in that U.S. state.) We might see the political reflection of this project in the shape of an HDP-Parallel structure alliance during the June 7 elections.
They believe that if the HDP enter the elections as a party, and in the event of it passing the election threshold, it will be able to prevent the AK Parti from coming to power with a majority enabling it to change the constitution.
If all the acts of political engineering thus far had been successful, the CHP would have come to power on its own in every election.
They deposed Deniz Baykal with a cassette scandal in the CHP and brought in Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to replace him but still failed. They created a common candidate for the CHP and MHP but still failed. The CHP and MHP are falling apart at the seams in the run-up to the June 7 elections. The current picture shows the AK Parti’s vote ratio at 49 percent, the HDP’s at 8 percent and the MHP’s floating in the 13-15 percent range. The CHP’s vote ratio stands at 21.5 percent… That is why they have embraced the HDP.
Two projects are being carried out on the basis of the HDP.
1-To prevent the AK Parti from attaining a majority enabling it to change the constitution.
2- Setting a trap for the resolution process on the basis of the HDP.
Of course the HDP will decide for itself how to participate in the elections. However, would Selahattin Demirtaş have been capable of carrying out the “we hail from Turkey” project without the resolution process? Would the HDP have found the platform to participate in the elections as a party without the resolution process?
It would have been impossible for them to get votes in the Aegean and Black Sea regions during the period when police stations were being raided and the bodies of martyrs were being brought in.
Just like the HDP’s involvement as an interlocutor was strengthened due to its presence in parliament; its absence from parliament will invite certain social crises. I want to put aside the opposition front and cast a look at the AK Parti’s election projection.
AK Parti staff carried out a very important study over the weekend in Afyon. The meeting, which Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also partially attended, is significant due to its being the first study conducted with regard to the June 7 elections.
The three-pronged strategy of the AK Parti consists of:
1-A new and free constitution.
2- Economic transformation.
3- Mega projects.
The third pillar consists of two sections.
A-Mind-blowing projects
B- Social projects
Of course, it won’t be limited to just these items. There is a project that sits very well with Prime Minister Davutoğlu’s intellectual identity. We could term this as the surprise on the election manifesto.
“Sacred struggle” or the “sacred fight.”
At a time when Islamophobia hasn’t sufficed for some and they are trying to turn it into animosity against Islam, the AK Parti will enter these elections with its “Struggle for civilization.”
The AK Parti is a party that until now joined the West in the “Alliance of Civilizations” project to tackle Islamophobia. It was because of this that the nationalist segment unjustly accused it of being a “co-chair of the Greater Middle East Project.” We are a country that took our place in the front rows of the Paris march in defiance of those who wanted to exploit the Paris massacre and create Europe’s version of Sept. 11, 2001.
However, it would be most becoming of our country to produce a civilization project to confront those attempting to fuel the flames of animosity against Islam.
One section of the AK Parti’s election manifesto will be devoted to the “Sacred struggle.” It will be presented as the building of a new civilization.
We could say that the AK Parti will not just address the Turkish people during these elections but will simultaneously issue a call to the world of Islam.
So what will happen to the resolution process and the presidential system?
The presidential system will be one of the most important elements of the new constitution project. The resolution process will both be mentioned separately in the election manifesto and also be part of the constitution project.
These are all important headings. But I must admit I was awestruck the first time I saw the “Sacred Fight” heading.
