A show of strength for Turkish democracy

That the oath ceremony and the inauguration ceremony took place within a single day immediately after the YSK announced the results of the Turkish elections, which the whole world awaited with great curiosity and excitement, and that the cabinet was announced that same evening, is a real show of strength in terms of Turkey's democracy and power.

All these events took place within a single day at a dizzying speed. Yet for the past year the air over what these elections would bring had grown thoroughly murky, and everyone was trying to make their own calculations according to the possibilities in this hazy atmosphere. Among those possibilities, the majority had set most of their bets on Erdoğan's departure. Those placing these bets were not merely betting; they were also doing everything in their power to make the result accord with their desires. That stage has passed. Everyone whose lot was disappointment and failure has received what he deserved.

TURKEY'S HEART-GEOGRAPHY AS WIDE AS THE WORLD

Those in every corner of the world who had no possibility of directly intervening for Erdoğan's victory took part in the process through the strongest form of intervention, their prayers, their tears, their whole hearts, and in the end they too experienced the greatest joy. Yet one remark I heard often from those calling from every part of Turkey's heart-geography, as wide as the world, was this: We cannot understand why only 52.2 percent of the Turkish people voted for such a valuable, hardworking, sincere great leader who has staked his life for his country. If it were up to us, we would hold him above our heads.

Of course, it is impossible not to agree with them. They cannot make sense of the fact that Kılıçdaroğlu, a man whose only achievements in life are defeats, who with lavish promises offered an ultra-fanciful, hence impossible, hence fabricated world against Erdoğan's actual services, received 47.8 percent of the vote. Of course we have an explanation. In Turkey the fact that a significant part of the people, driven by the ideological motives of politics, do not look at service and quality, and that ideological, ethnic and religious motivations are more decisive over voter behavior, is a reality in democratic processes, but it is not easy to explain to those unfamiliar with it.

It is a separate question mark how those who belittle the AK Parti voter as acting out of religious and ethnic motivations can remain so blind to the fact of which direction the Kurdish, secular and Alevi votes in their own vote reservoirs have been fixed. We said it before: the AK Parti voter, on the contrary, has acted as rationally as possible in his choice. Apart from a certain mass with a special heart-bond to Erdoğan's leadership, the rest of the electorate is as sensitive and fragile as can be. Yet the opposition votes we are talking about cannot be budged a millimeter from where they are. They are belittled, ignored, a toilet slipper is put in front of them, they are not counted, not loved, they are made to taste every kind of defeat and hardship, and yet they do not hold back from voting for the CHP or the HDP. Not all their voters, of course.

We are talking about an important core.

THE SPEED OF FORMING A GOVERNMENT IS A COUNTRY'S GREAT STRENGTH

After all, the announcement of the government only one day after the official announcement of the elections deserves every kind of emphasis. In many parts of the world, even though elections are held, cabinets cannot be formed for months, and soon there is a return to the polls, and in the meantime the country, with its people and its state, suffers great losses. Today in many parts of the world there are countries where cabinets still cannot be formed after elections held months ago. Because cabinets are formed as a result of petty bargaining among parties. The aim is not to put forward a vision, to advance and develop the country, but merely to share out the country's resources by means of the ministries.

If we too had a parliamentary system, perhaps, if not months, forming the government might have taken weeks. Indeed, even in 2015, because a government could not be formed for 45 days after 7 June, going back to elections became inevitable. Everyone can more or less guess what would have happened now had Kılıçdaroğlu won. There would have been a race to snatch a share from power, which everyone entering the alliance saw as a pie. Not only would 7 vice presidents have clung to the President, but the number of ministries would have been increased so that more ministries would fall to everyone, and the distribution of ministries would have taken place entirely like a distribution of shares. The burden of this distribution would of course have fallen on the people. Thank God, our nation's discernment and foresight saved the country from being squandered in the hands of such an appetite for sharing.

THE WORLD ON ONE SIDE, THE TURKISH OPPOSITION ON THE OTHER

The intense interest shown from every part of the world in the inauguration ceremony was a certification of President Erdoğan's world leadership. With 51 countries attending at the level of president or head of government, and a total of nearly a hundred countries' representatives taking part in the ceremony, it showed that a great credit has been opened for Turkey's politics under Erdoğan's consolidated leadership in the new term.

Let Kılıçdaroğlu and the YSP deputies put on adolescent protests by not standing up before Erdoğan at the oath ceremony. Of course they are the ones who will shrink, and of course they have already prepared the whole ground for their next defeat. That those who played the role of lovable sweethearts before the election should express such rancorous disrespect toward the election result, that is, toward the people, shows what kind of risk not only Erdoğan but Turkish democracy is under. The nature of the claims they have made for years about Erdoğan through the dictatorship charge has become plain as day through the people's choice and these politicians' behavior. Who is the dictator, they say? The one who respects the people's vote or the one who does not? Yet Erdoğan, only two days before the election, as soon as he was told "there is a claim that you will not leave the seat if you do not win," said angrily "what a nonsensical question, I reject this question," saying that the idea of any option other than respecting the people's decision would never even cross his mind. When he said this, the election had not yet taken place and all the polls the opposition so firmly believed in were saying Erdoğan would lose.

No better example could have shown that Kılıçdaroğlu and his allies' respect for democracy will extend only as far as they themselves win.

A CABINET OF COMPETENCE AND MERIT, FAR FROM ANY BARGAINING

On the matter of the cabinet, I can comfortably say that it is the best cabinet possible. In the cabinet there is no one about whom one could say "why is this one here, what business does he have here?" On the contrary, they are people who have the experience, knowledge and accumulated expertise necessary to reach the near and distant goals announced by Erdoğan.

A separate article could be written about each of them. The most dominant feature of the cabinet, in my view, is that there is not the slightest shadow of bargaining by the parties within the Cumhur alliance over it, and that its members, in terms of ideas, goals and vision, were chosen entirely according to their competence and merit, such that they would be readily accepted by all parties to the alliance.

Thus the government stands out and comes to the fore not as a place of sharing among partners but as a place of service and

work.

May it be auspicious for our Turkey and for everyone in our world-wide geography who holds fine feelings toward our Turkey; may it bring good things.