Whose last resort is the MHP–BDP–CHP alliance?

The CHP-BDP-MHP alliance that emerged during the TBMM deliberations on the constitutional amendment package gives the impression that it was conceived by certain people as a perfect "alliance of the hardest times." This trio could not have come together at every opportunity like that, but it seems it was thought that at one very special moment, under extraordinary conditions and "as a last resort," they could come together within a calculation.

For the purpose behind this alliance's founding had been worked out far more carefully, so as to give the image of an irreconcilable division. This trio, which seemed neither possible nor likely to come together on anything, in the end met, after all the twists and turns, on such a matter that it exposed what kind of fabrication the system had rested on until now. What caused this alliance to be exposed was nothing other than the defense reflex of the status quo. This reflex set in motion a common sense of defense against a real threat contained in the constitutional amendment package. This shows how vital, how genuinely sensitive a spot the move made with the Constitution package has touched. So real a move is it that it drove them to such an alliance at the price of exposing a division of labor prepared until now with great care, and a relationship concealed with the same care.

Just like the relations between the high judiciary and the CHP, which were exposed like iodine, the cooperation between Turkey's authoritarian, nationalist, deep status quo and those who pass themselves off as democratic and libertarian has also come out like iodine. In particular, it has become clear that all the BDP's complaints and criticisms in favor of the continuation of the present system were fake. It turns out the BDP was quite content with ethnic denial or discriminatory nationalism in Turkey. It turns out they had no complaint about the closure of their parties, or about a constant threat continuing over their parties. They were so content that a legal provision making the closure of parties more difficult fell out of the package because of the opposition they joined.

The TBMM stage of the constitutional amendment process is complete. At this stage it is a duty to appreciate that the AK Parti in general, and its Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in particular, displayed the highest performance that politics requires in Turkish politics. He has shown himself to be a powerful will against every factor that until now has narrowed the field of politics and dulled its will. The success he showed in controlling the group of 335 during the package's passage through the TBMM has added a new dimension and depth to his already very strong leadership.

When Article 8 of the package, which made the closure of parties more difficult and required TBMM permission, fell, eyes turned to the defections within the AK Parti. At first the comment "sleeping Ergenekon cells within the AK Parti" was made, but after the package as a whole passed, an easier assessment to make was this: the fall of Article 8 did not affect the package much, and indeed in this way the AK Parti found itself in a very profitable situation in many respects. First of all, the claim of "guided voting" over the other articles and the vote on the whole package was weakened. Second, on this occasion the shamefaced alliance among all parties, including the BDP, was forced to come out in all its openness.

Had Article 8 also passed without trouble, the place where the BDP stood on the side of the status quo on the constitutional amendment would not have been so conspicuous. It was seen that its politics, which it described as "not trailing behind either the AK Parti or the alliance of the CHP and MHP," was in the end quite completed by joining the alliance of the CHP and MHP. In the end the alliance did not become stronger with the BDP's participation; on the contrary, each of them came out of this alliance with great wounds.

Just as in 1991 the famous "holy alliance" among the Refah Partisi, the MÇP and the IDP took away a great deal from the Refah Partisi, especially in the Southeast. The expectation that alliances between parties in politics will be reflected one-to-one in an alliance of the voters is generally a raw daydream. On this, of course, what one allies on, when, and with whom is very important.

The fact that voters show no loyalty in any way to parties that show no loyalty to their voters, and that no party's voter is a partridge in its bag, will be the truth felt most strongly in the referendum process.