The model deemed fit for Turkey: a violently quarrelsome council

Meral Akşener's slamming the door as she left the last meeting of the Table of Six on 3 March also showed that all the meetings continuing for 13 months had taken place in an atmosphere of very severe incompatibility. The way Akşener was received at her party headquarters after leaving the meeting also indicated that the incident was not merely about her own personal whims. A great reaction against the agenda of the Table of Six has long been building within the İYİ Party base. That is why Akşener's overturning of the table was received as an answer to expectations and almost as a victory.

What Akşener said about the other members of the Table of Six after returning to the nest, and then what the Table of Six's officials or supporters said about her, are of a kind to arouse astonishment at how this table could even have endured for 13 months. It seems that despite so much severe incompatibility, sitting at the table could be continued only by compulsion, only by pressure. All the traces of this necessity and this pressure are visible in Akşener's return to the table after she had left it and gone back to her own home. The parties left unsaid nothing they could say to each other.

They do not trust one another, and they refrain from none of the underhanded tricks they get a chance to play on one another. The only motivation that stands out in the cheering from the sides to keep these together is "getting rid of Erdoğan."

A new earthquake has struck the country, nearly 50 thousand people have died, there are wounds to be bound, homes to be provided. And of course there is no agenda at all on the other matters of the country, on how Turkey's interests, position and cause will be defended and represented in a rapidly changing world. The most dominant feeling of the members of the Table of Six, who are not motivated or are not made to be motivated about any issue other than "getting rid of Erdoğan," is "hatred of Erdoğan."

In this Erdoğanphobia they are of course not alone. The external source of this phobia is a secret to no one, and it is a serious source of motivation.

Our six, however, despite all these centers of motivation, are in a serious incompatibility, and in this state of incompatibility they have pledged to take over the administration of the country from Erdoğan, whom they will topple. The splendid formula reached with Akşener's return is a kind of "presidential council." A system in which 7 people at once, together with Kılıçdaroğlu, will be vice-presidents and everyone will be authorized and powerful. What they promise people against Erdoğan, whom they have for years had on their tongues and teeth as a dictator, is a presidential council, a thing out of fashion even in the most primitive dictatorships.

As coincidence would have it, I am on a trip abroad for a conference. Seated next to me on the plane is a Yemeni businessman-politician whom I knew from before, who settled in Turkey because of the war in his country and became a Turkish citizen. We chat about Yemen, about regional and world politics, about Turkey's becoming a world power. He became a Turkish citizen through investment, but he has embraced citizenship to the marrow of his bones. He looks at the world like a Turk, follows developments concerning Turkey's becoming a world power and actor with great excitement, defends it and develops ideas about it.

Of course we talk about the situation in Yemen quite a bit too, but at one point the subject came to the Akşener earthquake experienced in recent days on the Nation Alliance front and her return after slamming the door and leaving. Since I also knew the situation in Yemen, I could not help teasing: "Just as with you, in our case too an eightfold group has formed for the Presidency. What do you say, since Yemen could not follow Turkey, shall we at least follow Yemen?"

My Yemeni friend suddenly became very serious, and, like "touch one and hear a thousand ahs," began to speak with the sharp reaction "God forbid." The coalition forces set up an eight-member group so that the parties in Yemen that could not reach agreement in any way would be brought together and would all rule together. In fact, in a country where there is not even a mention of national sovereignty, the only subject of all the meetings at which they come together to share virtual authority and limited resource allocations is the disagreements and failures to agree of these eight people. The country's situation, its problems, its administration, the people's hunger and helplessness have been thoroughly pushed aside. All efforts are focused on resolving the disagreements of these Vice-Presidents. The country has no other problem at the moment. I would never have expected Turkey to come to the point of taking Yemen as a model. That would be a complete disaster for Turkey.

I could only calm my friend's excited reaction by saying "rest assured, such a thing will not happen in Turkey." But it is clear that, with a different kind of excitement, the vision the Table of Six presents to Turkey offers no scene beyond this.

There is no proposal for a stronger Turkey; what is seen is a vision of a Turkey to be shared out by political actors. It was not for nothing that Kılıçdaroğlu has recently described this table as a "dining table." The dining table is Turkey; Turkey, with all its natural, material, moral and human resources, is not a value to be served, developed and strengthened, but a table to be eaten from to one's heart's content. Even if he wanted to give a mystical message by saying Halil İbrahim Table, there is no trace of that mystical contentment either in him or in the rest of the table's members. All of them claim that they deserve the most and are after eating the most.

Just look at the fights they got into while sharing out, counting as in hand, the results of an election they have not yet won. Do you suppose these fights, God forbid, would die down after an election is won? Would the great problem they will bring about be any different from the situation in Yemen? As my Yemeni friend says:

"The problem among these eight people, who came together to solve the country's problems together, through consultation and participation, has now become the most important problem of the country."

Again as coincidence would have it, while the members of the Table of Six were presenting to the nation as hope a press conference in which they presented as a victory having quieted for a while the severe incompatibility over sharing out the results of an election they have not yet earned and merely imagine, on the other side the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom they are trying to topple, was holding another press conference. Its subject was of course not the Table of Six; on the contrary, it explained what had been done and what would be done against the continuing earthquake disaster. Real solutions for a real issue, as he always does.