The most comprehensive survey: the election results

We have left behind yet another election, with all its campaigning, its dynamism, its debates, its tension and its enjoyable exchanges. At the hours this article is being written, results that would allow any comment for Turkey as a whole had not yet begun to take shape. So if we must speak about the results of this election from points that require no caution at all, what we can say without any dispute is that Turkish democracy has won one more round against the forces outside democracy, however the election results turn out.

Look at it from this side: in Turkey, the ruling party and the President of the Republic, its leader, in no way lounged idly in his office during this election process; he ran around more than anyone, tried more than anyone to explain himself, to set out his achievements and to give account to his people.

This alone was certainly a sight sufficient to render void the discourses of dictatorship or authoritarianism attributed to him. Otherwise, he would in any case order the results he wanted from the state forces dependent on him by other means, lounge idly in his office, and wait for those results to come to him. Yet until the last minute he did not shrink from running about, from asking his nation for votes for his party's candidates by holding rally after rally.

As we headed toward the election process, many polls were naturally conducted to determine the voting tendencies of the people. A series of comments was made on the accuracy or inaccuracy of candidates or policies according to the poll results. All of these comments have today been decided by the people, together with the final poll, the election results. Now before us is the widest-scale, most realistic and most instructive poll possible: the ballot-box results.

This poll does not show trends for the next elections. It contains important messages to the parties in the elections that have just been held. Through these election results the people write a text to parties, candidates and leaders containing very detailed messages. Now is the time to interpret this text in the most accurate way and to draw the necessary lessons from it.

The strongest assessment of the AK Parti's 17-year period in government, and of a municipal experience reaching back 25-30 years, lies hidden in these texts. Still, one must see that the people evaluate not only the services but also, separately, the qualities with which the people providing those services represent them. The concept of "municipalism of the heart," on which our President based this election, was one of the points that best captured precisely this dimension. We will see most clearly through these election results as well that however much service a candidate may have rendered, if he has remained far from the road to the people's heart, no candidate can pass the voter's examination.

During the election process I personally took part in, and gave interviews to, a great many international television channels, particularly Arab channels, on Turkey's experience of local elections. I do not really remember whether this interest existed before, but this time I noticed a serious interest in the fact that local elections are taken so seriously in Turkey. It is clear that in their own countries the concept of local administrations, let alone the election of these administrators in this manner, is something they are entirely unaccustomed to.

Unfortunately, in a significant portion of Arab countries, local administrations are matters handled entirely by the central government. And what kind of elections there are for central governments is known to everyone. What kind of worth can local administrations have under the rule of dictators elected with votes above ninety percent in elections held with the desired quantity of votes ordered into the ballot boxes and with very little participation?

Indeed, it is precisely from these countries that Turkey's local election process is being noticed in such detail for the first time, and this noticing is at the same time being treated as an important element of the much-discussed, legendary "Turkish model."

Democracy of course begins at the local level. That participation at the local level is experienced in a kind of festival atmosphere, and that almost the entire country takes part in this festival, is at the same time another kind of indicator of the integration of nation and state.

Right at this point I encountered faces that could not make sense of the fact that the AK Parti, which has been in power alone for 17 years, was competing in these elections on equal terms with all the other parties. I met time and again with the question: "So what, is there now a possibility of the opposition parties taking some municipalities from the AK Parti in these elections? And if they do, will the AK Parti hand them over?"

Of course the answer was far more meaningful, and it in fact showed the maturity of the democratic level Turkey has reached:

"Of course, whether the AK Parti or the opposition parties win. Whoever wins, in the end the winner will be Turkish democracy, and for the AK Parti too its assessment will be welcomed with the highest regard as the decision of the people, who make the best decision. In such a case the AK Parti will do nothing other than carry out the self-criticism incumbent upon it because of this assessment by the people and prepare better for the next elections."

Toward the end of the article, results from the East and Southeast had begun to take shape. Şırnak and Hakkari, regarded until now as strongholds of the HDP, have shown a significant shift in favor of the AK Parti in both the provinces and all their districts. At the same time, it is seen that a serious change of tendency in the same direction is taking place in Siirt, Ağrı, Mardin, Diyarbakır and all the other provinces. With these results it is clear that we will be speaking of having moved to an entirely new stage regarding the politics of service and identity in Turkey, God willing.

Whatever the election results, they offer important opportunities for Turkey's renewal and for new policies to be determined with the approval, support and direction of the people. Opportunities in which, ultimately, social tensions and debates are resolved, if only for a while, under the arbitration of the people.

Whatever happens, may the election results be auspicious for our country, our nation, the Islamic world and the entire Islamic world.