Turkey has more than enough democracy, nothing lacking

Turkey is absorbed in debates over an early election, and as the final stretch for the likely candidates is entered amid great excitement, swings and surprises, on the European side, in Strasbourg, the session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is also taking place.

At PACE, which is already meeting with limited participation from Turkey because of the sudden election decision, it is possible on the one hand to observe the problems experienced within Europe, and on the other, of course, to follow the course of approaches toward Turkey…

In the previous term, a serious period of trouble had begun between Turkey and PACE after the scandal of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, awarded every year within PACE, being given last year to Murat Arslan, the former head of YARSAV, who is on trial on the grounds of being a member of the FETÖ organization.

Turkey, among the founders of PACE, had been one of its main sponsors for several years. When this great mistake was added on top of the space PACE had earlier opened to terrorist organizations and, subsequently, its decision to place Turkey under monitoring after a forced report, Turkey withdrew from its main sponsorship and was brought down to the same obligations as the other member states, and PACE was forced to cut back in many areas, in spending and in employment.

PACE Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland had described the most important problem of European democracy in general, and of PACE in particular, as populism in his opening speech to the General Assembly in January. The side of this populism that affects Turkey is that European politicians very easily surrender to Islamophobia or Turkophobia (these days Erdoğanophobia), which has become common currency among the people, and that they immediately buy anything against Islam, Turkey and Erdoğan without knowing the truth of the matter and without bothering to ask or investigate. This demand can be seen as the politicians' populist surrender to this general trend that has become an ideology in society, but..

This year too the PACE sessions began with a great mistake that was no less than the Murat Arslan case.

At the initiative of the Group Chairman of the United European Left (UEL), a conference targeting Turkey's Operation Olive Branch was organized in the PACE building in order to have Salih Müslim, the leader of the PYD, the Syrian branch of the PKK, which Europe also regards as a terrorist organization, speak. The conference at which Müslim was to speak, who is subject to an arrest warrant with a red notice because of terrorist attacks carried out in Turkey on his instructions and resulting in many deaths, had not been announced in advance.

Of course, the bringing of the leader of a terrorist organization against whom there is a red notice because of terrorist attacks into the PACE building under the tight protection of the French police officers charged with arresting him, and letting him speak, is not something that can simply be explained by PACE's democratic internal working mechanisms. What is at issue here is France standing behind the promise it had announced earlier to the PYD, giving it support openly and defiantly. With this approach, which declares that it recognizes no valid data or discourse on terrorism, France has made very bad use of PACE as well for this political stance.

Of course, the general atmosphere prevailing in PACE is more than suitable for approving such an event. In this situation, the head of the Turkish delegation at least, the esteemed Akif Çağatay Kılıç, had no choice but to leave in protest of this event.

In the later sessions too, as of yesterday, the report discussed in PACE on state-of-emergency practices that exist in many countries of Europe was decided with criticisms directed at the state of emergency in Turkey, together with a warning that the early election would not conform to European standards. It is an approach that more than gives the impression that either it still has not grasped the dimensions of the July 15 coup attempt that Turkey faced, or that it is part of the affair. The stance the people of Turkey displayed on July 15 was in fact, if Europe behaved a little honestly, also a defense of the values Europe exalts. Democracy, Parliament, Human Rights, Freedoms… And the perpetrators of the coup that targeted all these values are a structure of a secrecy, cunning and organization unseen elsewhere in Europe or anywhere in the world. To decide, in Europe's comfortable and safe circumstances, how much of the measures taken against it could be enough is of course impossible. That is, if there is even sufficient sincerity to make this decision...

There is no satisfying justification whatsoever as to which European standard is missing in the elections Turkey will go to on June 24. They suppose, or claim, that the opposition has no means, conditions, space or freedom whatsoever to conduct its campaign and put forward its moves.

How are we to ask them whether, with this, they are being unjust to the government or to the opposition in Turkey? How are we to explain to them, if they cannot see how our opposition, in just a few days, shook all of Turkey's political conventions like carded cotton and performed acrobatic maneuvers? Does the authoritarianism of the main opposition in being able to assign whichever of its own member MPs it wants to another party also create a problem for PACE, I wonder?

If it does, should this problem be evaluated within the scope of the opposition's capacity to exercise excessive freedom, in the context of the opposition parties' own internal authoritarianism, or should it be attributed to the government having been able to provide or preserve an environment that allows such things?

Indeed, when one looks at the scene, no one is seen complaining about having been caught by a snap election. Just look, there is a holiday mood in everyone. The CHP leader, instead of running himself, can knock on Abdullah Gül's door to make him President. The CHP leader is looking for a remedy, a political sacrifice, for an election that he has accepted in advance he cannot win. Gül seems to keep his door open to everyone, without distinguishing even those looking for a sacrificial victim, and sees the offers to be made. Temel Karamollaoğlu is heating things up even more. Amid all this, Erdoğan's opponents are signing incredible maneuvers. Meanwhile every actor, big and small, hopeful and hopeless, with a remedy and without, is on stage. What is Erdoğan doing other than using his right to political assessment against these moves?

It is clear that in these elections there are many things that do not exist in Europe, but for God's sake, what is missing from democracy? There is a surplus, nothing missing.