Project New Turkey

Turkey’s presidential election is going to be a choice between “problematic old Turkey” and “problematic new Turkey.” I am almost sure that “Erdoğan’s new Turkey” will win, not only because Erdogan’s rivals are weak but also because Erdoğan and his party have no luxury to loose. The bill, which is presented to Parliament to legalize the Kurdish negotiation process in the last minute before the Parliament closes, is part of the compulsory winning game. I am sure Abdullah Öcalan would prefer to keep his bargaining power longer by nominating a strong presidential candidate from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), in the first round. Yet, he must have been pressurized by the government not to do so, to ensure Erdoğan’s first round victory.

No matter whose plan works better, it seems clear that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Kurdish alliance will win. Under the present circumstances, Erdoğan or his party’s presidency will ensure the finalization of the “new Turkey” project. I wish everything new could be good or at least better than the old, but this is not the case neither in politics, nor in any other field of life. It is that, despite that the new one being always more attractive in the beginning, it may be that your new partner proves to be as bad or worse than the old done. In fact, it turned out to be so with the AKP in Turkey; since “the lovers of democracy” thought that they found the “right one” in the beginning but got dramatically disappointed by the end of the affair. Unfortunately, the AKP and the new Turkey project did not only betray its lovers and failed to achieve more democratization, but it also lead to a serious...