Who will draw what lesson from 16 April?

It is very clear that the results of the 16 April Referendum do not remain merely an explicit decision on the matter put to the popular vote, but give, and should give, important messages to everyone. After all, although by rule the outcome of this referendum should in fact have ended all debates, looking at those who try to keep the debates going, one sees an obstinacy about not drawing these lessons.

The AK Parti has, as after all elections, already begun its work after this referendum in order to draw the necessary lessons on its own behalf. Perhaps the most important difference between it and the CHP and other parties emerges on this occasion too. Although the others lose elections incessantly, after no election do they gather properly and ask "why did we lose this election?" or "why didn't this nation vote for us?"; instead they resort to a path of constantly blaming those who did not vote for them. Instead of blaming itself, the CHP goes down the path of blaming either its rival or the electorate itself. The AK Parti, however, even after the elections it has won (and it has won all the elections it has entered so far), gathers and asks "why couldn't we get more votes?" and "we won this election, but why didn't those who did not vote for us do so, where did we go wrong?" In this way, after every election it starts the campaign for the next one. Indeed this may perhaps be the first and most important explanation of why it wins the next elections too.

The CHP based this election campaign on the concept of "protecting the powers of the TBMM" against "one-man" authority. Yet everyone knows that in the past too the CHP never had any respect for the will of the TBMM. Whenever a decision it did not want came out of the TBMM, rushing to the Constitutional Court has been the CHP's most important habit. They always regarded the Constitutional Court, a tutelage institution they created with the 27 May 1960 coup they are so fond of, as better than the TBMM, because against a TBMM majority that never sufficed for them to take decisions, the Constitutional Court gave them a strange power to govern the country, in fact to govern by making it ungovernable. That Constitutional Court was able, in order to elect a president, to interpret with ease the quorum for the Assembly's sitting and the quorum for decision in the first round in accordance with the pleasure of the CHP members and produce the 367 innovation. The same Constitutional Court was able to annul a constitutional amendment that had passed the TBMM with 411 votes by agreeing to examine it on its merits although it had no authority to do so.

IS THE CHP TAKING THE TURKISH PEOPLE TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT?

Today the CHP, unable to restrain its momentum, can raise on the agenda taking a package that passed the TBMM, went to a popular vote and was accepted by the people, that is, the people's decision, to the Constitutional Court. Thank God there is no longer a Constitutional Court that could hide, cover up, the comedy it has fallen into by doing so.

Today there is no Constitutional Court they can trust, but there are international institutions they trust. There is the OSCE, there is the ECtHR, there are all the institutions of the EU. It is as if there is no door they have not worn out in the hope that a remedy for this affliction of theirs might perhaps be found from them.

Just one day after 16 April the OSCE published, hurriedly, a report; in what time they prepared it, with whom and how they spoke, is unknown. It was very clear that this report was announced in order to pour fuel on the provocation the CHP wants to carry out in Turkey. The aim emerged as starting a popular uprising. However, the whole world took this report onto its agenda for a while as if it had some seriousness.

The report stood out with its openly partisan language and its aggression, which could not hide its opposition to Turkey. The delegation that came to Turkey to prepare the report is openly a party to the campaign. So much so that the German parliamentarian Andrej Hunko, who almost considers himself charged with making propaganda for the terrorist organization PKK, is one of the rapporteurs. This relationship alone should be a serious warning for thinking about where this dirty hand and viewpoint, which has contaminated the formation of the OSCE's or the EU's views on Turkey, is dragging Europe. Frankly, the fact that such a report was published in the name of an organization that carries the aim of spreading and deepening democratization in Europe has only shaken confidence in the organization.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE TO "COMPETE ON EQUAL TERMS"?

After witnessing this relationship, is it necessary to mention that the claims stated in the report are baseless and untrue? Unfortunately, the statements coming from these dirty mouths have spread. So let us continue in order to clean the ears that heard. For example, it is stated that the referendum campaign was not conducted on equal terms? What is meant by equal terms? In Turkey all parties that pass the 10% election threshold receive a share from the state treasury. All television channels are open to all political movements. Internet facilities and social media are open to everyone's use. If what is meant by inequality is that the "yes" campaign was run by a charismatic leader, while in contrast the "no" campaign was run by leaders who could never establish contact with Turkish society, who are alien to it and have no charisma, what measure does the OSCE propose to equalize this?

It is understood that the source of the discomfort is our esteemed President's support for the "yes" campaign and the performance and leadership shown in this process by our Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. So for the referendum campaign to be equal according to the OSCE, the esteemed President should not have spoken, and the esteemed Prime Minister should not have shown such a performance. What does the OSCE's statement "the election did not take place on equal terms" mean?

The inequality between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu is indeed a reality, but let us confess that it is an ontological condition; there is no way to make up for it.

However, let us remember that in none of the elections that Kılıçdaroğlu and the other opponents have previously entered against Erdoğan have the equal conditions they desire come into being in this way. That is why Kılıçdaroğlu already appears sure, even now, that Erdoğan will win the elections to take place in 2019 and in 2024 too. Because his not seeing himself as equal arises not from the election conditions failing to offer the possibility, but from his own point of view itself.