Everyone's vote to themselves

It is everyone's most natural right to cast the vote they wish, with their free will, on the constitutional amendment package put to a referendum. Within this framework, one should not forget that saying "no" to the package is at least as legitimate as saying "yes". The requirement of politics is that matters of dispute be possible and that these matters be freely defended. But this of course does not mean that not everyone can defend their own position and that those who defend the opposite view cannot be criticized on the point of consistency.

Drawing attention to the oddity of those who have been through the tortures of September 12, and who have built their discourse almost entirely on criticisms of this coup, saying "no" today to the regulations that make possible the trial of the September 12 coup and its coup makers surely cannot be received as democratic authoritarianism.

Especially the question of with what motives the MHP members say "no" to making more open and pluralistic the structure of the HSYK, whose present composition was established entirely with open pronouncements against them, will, with their permission, frequently confront them in the referendum process. Mehmet Moğultay, one of the former Ministers of Justice, answered criticisms of his unbelievably rapid and rule-defying cadre-building with "were we supposed to leave out our friends and fill it with MHP members?" Today the judiciary is paralyzed in its capacity to produce justice precisely under the effect of these preferences, and the results that have emerged present a picture that deeply wounds the sense of justice of broad segments, including in particular the MHP base. The question of what will it is serving by saying "no" to the correction of this partisan stance of the HSYK is a question that even the simplest mind will frequently, even oppressively, put to the MHP.

The MHP leadership can of course, if it wishes, with its free will, continue to say "no." Even if just this once, it may also choose to look not at the content of the matter but only at how much it would benefit the AK Parti. This too is its most natural democratic right. But it will be in its own interest to take into account that this question of consistency will weigh on it in the course of the process.

The same of course applies even more to the BTP members. The BTP members, who could not avoid ending up on the same side as the MHP in the voting process in the Assembly, have also made their choice. They cannot of course be condemned for this choice, but they can be criticized.

Today the BTP leadership has the difficulty of explaining why it opposes a package that includes settling accounts with September 12, with the judicial system that covers up unsolved murders, and with the AYM structure that closes it down every other minute, and that further democratizes the system, and moreover does so by ending up on the same side as the MHP. By this choice it may be subjected to the accusation that it actually has no trouble at all with the continuation of the status quo that forms the very source of what it calls the Kurdish problem, or even that it is precisely an accomplice of the current status quo. This is the idea that the BDP's choice first brings to mind and strongly suggests. Of course, as a party leadership it can make whatever calculation it wishes and pursue whatever politics it wishes, but it will be in its own interest to watch the relevance of the politics it pursues to its own consistency.

The BDP has perhaps, in order to display its own difference in the referendum, announced its decision not to go to the ballot box, that is, to boycott the referendum. Truly, this is also a democratic option; no one can object. It conducts its propaganda in this direction and thus also tests the result of its own politics before the people. But if things truly take place within these democratic limits. ..

Our concern is that the BDP's call to boycott the referendum before its own voters will not remain limited to a call, and that it will exert pressure on its own voters, by means of the help of the armed organization, in the direction of not going to the ballot box. As far as can be seen, the BDP organization, just as in the local elections, will try in many places to actually prevent people from going to the ballot box through threats and terror.

The BDP or anyone else can of course make whatever choice they wish in the referendum; they may say yes, they may say no, they may even boycott. But forcing the people to act in line with the choice it wants by threatening them is not a democratic right.

In the latest surveys conducted in the Southeast and led by Assoc. Prof. Rüstem Erkan, it is seen that the BDP's own voters' preference does not coincide with their party's choice. Precisely because of this, since it appears practically impossible for the BDP to bring a "no" campaign to a successful conclusion, pursuing a campaign of keeping its voters from going to the ballot box through the compulsion of a "boycott" must have seemed an easier path. To resort to this path is an expression that its own politics has been completely exhausted.

Ultimately, no one can be condemned in elections for their preferences among the options presented to them. The confrontation of these options and the defense of the superiority of one over the other is equally natural. But what is never natural is the actual prevention of making a choice.

Therefore, wanting the BDP to cut its ties with terror should be understood and taken into consideration, at least on this point, not as wanting it to turn its back on the masses it represents, but only as wanting it not to resort to armed tutelage over politics.