Politics and parties that neigh according to their owner

The year is 1996. The Refahyol government has been formed, Prime Minister Erbakan has read the party program in the TBMM, and debates on the program are under way. ANAP Chairman Mesut Yılmaz, criticizing the program, says: "This program is almost the same as our program; you have not shown any difference."

With these words, he was pointing out that the program the Welfare Party had boasted of before the elections within the framework of its Just Order claim could in no way be reflected in the program of the coalition it entered with the DYP, and at the same time was saying that the realities of the system would never allow such a thing anyway. He was thus trying to explain the futility of the Welfare Party's discourse, which had drawn strong popular support.

Erbakan's reply to this criticism, in my opinion, was very meaningful for pointing out the areas in which parties in Turkey, and indeed in the modern world, are stuck. Without at all denying the similarity between the programs and without falling into a complex because of it, he said, in effect: "What is more natural than the programs being the same? What is to be done is already clear. The matter lies in who will do it. This horse neighs according to its owner. The text of the program is nothing; what matters is who will implement this program."

It was a defense with a very high share of truth. But of course not because what is to be done is clear. On the contrary, it is a plain sociological fact that even when the things to be done are the same, the identity and character of those who will do them play a very important role in party politics.

It is always said, isn't it? The economic program implemented by the AK Parti largely overlaps with the program implemented by Kemal Derviş. But a very important fact relevant to the very subject is ignored. Had Derviş himself been in office, he could never have implemented this program, or another one, successfully. Because politics is not only a matter of programs; it is also an activity that can be carried out through relations of organic representation and trust established with social dynamics.

In that case, in theory, noteworthy differences can emerge merely because those implementing the same program are different. This stems from the creative potentials of the political process and its dynamics. That is, no constraint can hold out against a real political will and performance.

However, even though this may be enough to eliminate the politicians' excuses sufficiently, it does not in the end require us to ignore the constraints politics faces in Turkey.

Indeed, because of their position largely in the grip of the official ideology, while parties are obliged to compete in showing that they are no different from one another, society's problems and differences struggle to find real representation and a path to resolution. No party can develop, in theory, an original path on the Kurdish question, the Alevi question, religion, or the problematic areas in international relations.

The only thing that can loosen this restrictiveness in theory and discourse a little is the performance that can be displayed in the practical field. Members of parliament cannot undertake to claim representation of any of these problems, let alone even exclusively of their own regions. The representative nature of the deputyship has been defined within the scope of the "mandate for the whole country."

As a result, conducting the country's politics with members of parliament who all resemble one another and whose political field has been narrowed to the utmost is possible only by being very agile, nimble and creative. Taking on these qualities, it must be appreciated, requires also facing heavy risks. Generally, very few of the politicians who find the field before them so narrow can take on the risk of overcoming this narrow field or of being creative within it. This leads to the figure of the politician becoming utterly ordinary.

At the Abant meeting, the nineteenth of which took place last weekend, political parties were put on the table as the most important actors of democracy. The state of political parties, undoubtedly, provides the most important data that will reveal the possibilities and limits of our democracy.

The lack of a solid and secure tradition of political parties, and the fact that a significant portion of our parties do not have a refined stance on democracy that they would guard jealously, were noted as one of the most important problems of our democracy. Parties that can be closed down very easily have not been able to establish a deep-rooted path of representation, nor do they reveal any noteworthy difference in stating what they will do. The only difference they can reveal is "who" they will make the horse neigh with.

At this point, if you do not do "who"-politics, what do you do?