Political communication and representation

Elections are like the festivals of democratic regimes. In one respect they correspond to a moment of complete encounter and fusion. In another, they offer people the opportunity to pour out whatever they keep hidden inside against one another, whatever stones they have in their skirts.

The aim of elections, or especially of leaders' speeches at rally grounds, is of course not to sustain a dialogue with the representatives of other parties. The stones in the skirts are not thrown out with the aim of conducting a debate within a chain of logic. The ultimate logic of election speeches and debates is the same as the logic of a fierce conflict, even of war. That this language sometimes takes place in a gentler and softer atmosphere of competition is only an exceptional case.

Whether we like it or not, this is how the democratic process works. Nobody expects an atmosphere of fair play, nor does anyone try to contribute to such a process. Moreover, election campaigns unfortunately not only turn party representatives into each other's wolves, they also often portray the voter as a being who can easily be deceived, whose preferences can be steered by conditioning. When candidates distinguished by qualities diametrically opposed to the party's policies or discourse are put on party lists, what is aimed at is not the expansion of party policies in the direction of those candidates' views, but that the voter, looking at those candidates, can be lured into the trap. When the song of a beloved popular singer is played as the party's song, it is calculated that the voter can vote merely by looking at this.

In fact, such a target voter amounts to a serious disrespect toward the voter. When you assume the voter to be a subject whose preferences can be steered by being affected by a song heard, you can only gloomily wonder what kind of good could come out of the democratic picture that emerges.

Yet there is a truth that all parties must remember in every election period: voters are not partridges in the parties' bags. The voter who is thought to be deceivable by being treated as a fool, with a conditioning or two, an exaggerated promise or two, a promise or two not sufficiently consistent with the party's paradigm, gives a heavy lesson every time. Take a look, if you like, at the picture that elections held since the fifties have handed down from one to the next. Each time at least 40 percent of voters appear to have changed parties.

From this it can by no means be concluded that the voter is disloyal and chases whoever deceives well. Apparently, some parties fall into this great illusion every time. Yet to parties that know their own voters well and show loyalty to their demands, the voter certainly gives a return for that loyalty. This mutual loyalty has a very important share in the AK Parti's having won all elections so far in succession.

When it remains faithful to the promises it gave to its own voters, that is, when it continues to display consistency in its performance of representing the base it claims to represent, its voters do not abandon it either.

However, the AK Parti too must not forget that this authority of representation is not an unlimited authorization, and requires keeping communication with one's own base alive at every stage. Particularly in the candidate selections of the 2009 local elections, the AK Parti experienced a real break in communication with the voter, and paid the price with a 9 percent loss of votes.

In this election period, not only has this break in communication not been remedied, but it appears very clear that in many places an attitude directly contrary to voter tendencies has been displayed. The candidate list is not the AK Parti's only problem in its break in communication with its own voters; indeed, this problem may not be felt much, at least in these elections, because the Prime Minister's personal charisma is still sufficiently compelling. But the AK Parti needs to display a much clearer will in order to sustain the same level of loyalty with its own voters on democratization. For its voters demand a far more radical democracy than the party center supposes. Charisma is not a boundless source of authority, and once it has emerged, the strongest source of nourishment for its continuation is strong political communication and representation.

On the other hand, in terms of these criteria it seems almost impossible even to measure the CHP. Kılıçdaroğlu seems to have no pursuit other than being a shrewd marketer of bad goods rather than representing the voter. His discourse and horizon of promises belong to an outdated style of generous-handed politician that has no validity today. The last great representative of this style was Demirel. He also had the creativity to give one or a few more than what others gave, but its cost to the country amounts to a nightmare from which there is no return. To this style of politics, which forms the peak of treating the voter as a fool, the voter now very simply asks the source of what is promised to him. How those who cannot give satisfying, project-based answers to this question will be received after so much experience we will see together on 12 June.

CONDOLENCES

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Ziya Albayrak, the venerable father of my dear brother Hakan Albayrak, has passed to the mercy of the Truth. I pray to Almighty God for mercy on the deceased and for beautiful patience for those left behind.