Tayyip Erdoğan's leadership

As we enter the final junction of the presidential election, it is quite natural that we are experiencing an atmosphere of a kind not seen in any previous presidential election. Because the earlier elections were not held directly by the people, and on the eve of no previous presidential election was there a candidate so indisputable in his merit and deservingness for that office.

In place of the processes that were earlier determined by parliamentary maneuvering and were open to intrigues of this level and to the interventions of the elements of tutelage, there is today a process in which the people will give their decision directly. And the fact that, when it comes to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, almost no one has any doubt about what the people will decide gives the process a different significance.

Both those who love Erdoğan and those who oppose him seem sure that he will receive the people's vote. The election appears to be a process whose outcome is already known. The opposition's moves reflect not an effort to win the election but the haste of getting out of this undesirable election with the least damage. That is why the CHP and MHP did not dare to run with their own candidates. Because they, too, have now fully understood that the candidate they would field would compete against a true leader and would have no chance from the very beginning.

That is why, going to the people, that is, to the people that include their own voters, they put forward someone with no connection whatsoever to their own party lines.

Will this umbrella candidate they have put forward in the presidential election, which has descended upon them like a nightmare, be able to form a protective shield for them?

The identity and profile of the umbrella candidate show that the opposition has no expectation from this election and wants to get through the situation with the least damage. As far as can be seen, the umbrella candidate is perceived as an expression of a helplessness that sinks deeper the more it flounders, and especially plants grudges in the CHP that cannot easily be resolved. It may be hoped that the changes it will have to go through while trying to resolve these grudges will benefit the CHP.

As for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as of tomorrow everyone will have heard what his decision will be. His choice will undoubtedly be received as the decision of the real hero of the real story.

The people of Turkey are watching the story of a true leader who, for the last 20 years, has left his stamp on the course of the country and become identified with it. That story, since the day it began, has been full of episodes of success that have never shown a tendency to fall and keep rising.

In that story there is his renowned, successful administration of Istanbul, which had become a tangle of problems, following a meaningful election victory. Then there is a stage on which they tried to cut him off because of a poem he recited. Then there is his arrival, when it had been said "he could not even become a village headman," saving the nation from all the bad politicians who had beset the people, with a clear election victory.

Afterwards there are genuine, organic relations established with the people, and a firm will that, while always working in favor of the people, was constantly someone they tried to cut off and that constantly foiled all the plots.

Evils mobilized with Ayışığı, Sarıkız, Ergenekon, Balyoz, April 27, the Republic rallies, the 367, the closure case, the Gezi uprising, December 17, December 25, strange and surprise alliances, elegant betrayals...

Against all of these, the clear answers given with Davos, with the Mavi Marmara, with April 28, with July 22, with September 12, with June 11, with the national will rallies and with March 30...

From the sum of these encounters emerges a clear integrity of story that is hard to find the like of in history. It is very hard to find in history a leader's story so consistent within itself, so integral, and moving toward a destination. Erdoğan's life story is by itself an exceptional story, and this makes his leadership even more indisputable.

That is why Erdoğan's decision is not simply the decision of a candidate aspiring to run the office of the Presidency. It will be a decision that does not break the integrity of a story that has unfolded before the people's eyes for 20 years and to which the people feel they belong.

In essence, Erdoğan continued to be the leader of this country as prime minister, too. The office of the Presidency will not bring about a change in his quality of leadership. Besides, in 2007, too, it was he himself, as a leader, who decided who would sit in the office of the Presidency. Whatever response the people who recognized him as a leader gave to that decision when he made it, there is no doubt that they will give the same response today.

But there is also a truth: the soundness of that decision of his has reinforced all the more the acceptance of his quality of leadership among the people. Had he taken the presidency in 2007, what would the many coup attempts, the constitutional referendum, the international crises and the election results that took place since then have been like? Even this question shows that his leadership has a quality that puts offices in parentheses, that transcends them.

When he decides to become president, Erdoğan will undoubtedly continue to be the leader of the AK Parti, if not its Chairman.