A new breakthrough period in the AK Party: democracy, change, reform

Tomorrow the AK Parti's 3rd Extraordinary Congress is being held. Although no extraordinary congress took place in the AK Parti, founded 16 years ago, for 14 years, it has fitted no fewer than 3 extraordinary congresses into the last two years. Because of this, it may occur to some to compare the extraordinary ones with the Kurultay Parties, whose extraordinary congresses are several times more numerous than their ordinary ones.

Let us say at once that the extraordinary nature of the AK Parti's congresses is not one that results from a dispute, a disagreement or a conflict within the party.

Congresses in the AK Parti develop as the natural outcome of a politics under the party's own control.

The first came about because, upon its Chairman's election as President, his tie with his party was severed under the constitution. The second took place as a handover of duty by the unanimous vote of the delegates within the party. The present one rests on the result of the most comprehensive reform of the system of government in the country's history, again spearheaded by the AK Parti.

With this reform, accepted by the people on 16 April, the obligation of the President to cut his tie with his party has been lifted and politics has returned to its own nature. Politics, in essence, is having a thesis, an argument, a cause, pursuing its cause, being its side.

To demand that a President to be elected by the people be impartial is, in essence, to condemn politics from the outset to a great lie, to demand that a person aspiring to politics give up his own theses.

This hypocritical style of politics has become a thing of the past with the constitutional amendment. Now, as the natural consequence of this, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the founding leader of the AK Parti, which has made Turkey live through what is almost a silent revolution for 15 years, is returning as Chairman to the party he was officially obliged to leave as of 29 August 2014.

We say "officially" because in fact everyone sees that these official ties could not close the paths of the heart and could not destroy Erdoğan's status as the founding and guiding leader of the AK Parti.

Therefore even the extraordinary congresses in the AK Parti are experienced as an exuberant festival, as the first applications and proclamations, of the change the AK Parti has made Turkey live through.

The slogan of the AK Parti's 3rd Extraordinary Congress has been set as

New Era of Breakthrough, Democracy, Change, Reform.

The AK Parti, which has been in power alone for 15 years under Erdoğan's leadership, is a party that has built the new Turkey with all its institutions and habits and has made Turkey live through a radical change.

The performance displayed in the direction of democratization fully deserves to be called a "silent revolution."

Unfortunately, terrorist organizations, above all FETÖ and PKK, abused many of these democratization steps and dealt our democratization process a blow from which it is hard to recover. Even so, the AK Parti is not a party that would ever give up the goal of reaching a level of democratization that does not put the country's security at risk.

Because from the very beginning its reason for being has been to develop rights and freedoms in Turkey and to attain and preserve the democratic level our nation deserves.

Reaching this level requires a serious will to change.

There is a kind of change that happens by itself even if you make no intervention.

This is something that sociology already forces and demands of the politician. Even if the politician does not respond to this demand, society keeps changing by itself and immediately throws the politician who lags behind this change out of the lane.

But there is an establishment and culture protected by established political habits and institutional structures, and if your goals are high, you cannot go beyond being an ordinary politician without struggling against them, without changing them.

The problems from which Turkey suffered were not simple problems.

If the existence of these problems has become a livelihood for some people, inside or outside, then touching them from time to time may require you to take on the world.

The attacks and coup attempts the AK Parti has faced since coming to power represent the resistance of national or global forces awakened while responding to society's desire for change.

Had the AK Parti never entered these areas, perhaps it would not have been made such an enemy as an ordinary Turkish party of politics, and its leader and leading figures might have been more accepted in some circles.

Yet in a Turkey and a world with so much injustice and so much crookedness, it is impossible to change anything by remaining within the limits of an "ordinary politician."

By seeming to change things while being content merely with changing the outward appearance, one can win Nobels, and it is even possible to collect the appreciation of the forces that dominate the world and Turkey. But demanding real change requires touching the heart of the problem, and this requires courage and will.

The AK Parti under Erdoğan's leadership displayed its demand, will and courage for change to those responsible for the world's crooked order, at times entering into struggle with them and pushing those forces back.

Perhaps in this way it lost the good favor and sympathy of those forces, but it increased manifold the good favor and sympathy it enjoys among the nation.

In this way the AK Parti became the address of those who dare to change and to bring about change.

It would be fitting to call this the AK Parti style of politics.

With this style of politics, in the new period the AK Parti will have entered a new era of breakthrough. May it bring good things to Turkey and to the world.