Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu launched his party’s election campaign in Southern Province of Mersin on December 4; way earlier than its scheduled date on June 18, 2023 because the opposition forces pushed for an early election due to the current economic state of Turkey. As his opposition “Nation Alliance” partner İYİ Party (Good Party) leader Meral Akşener did in her first rally on November 20, Kılıçdaroğlu challenged the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and People Alliance partner Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for early election in his first public speech.
Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener do not anticipate President and AKP leader Tayyip Erdoğan and his partner in the People’s Alliance, MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, to respond their early election calls positively. What they want to do is to devalue their public image by implying that the ruling alliance is “running away from the election.” They want to reinforce the idea that the solution to economic problems lies in democratic elections and curb the rising discontent in public.
While the CHP leader addressed the public at the Mersin rally, the AKP leader was in Siirt, speaking at a rally with his President hat on. In his speech, he emphasized that Kılıçdaroğlu has not won a single election so far, ignoring the fact that CHP has retaken major metropolitan municipalities, including Istanbul and Ankara, in 2019 local elections. It was that election that destroyed Erdoğan’s “invincibility” cape.
Competing the mass: numbers speak
Erdoğan’s massive public appearances are not considered “rallies”. They have been branded as “opening ceremony.” The reason for this rebranding is that governorships in many cities in Turkey have banned rallies or designated small venues for such events as “official rally areas;” the rallies are what opposition parties organize. For that reason, Erdoğan was able to give a public speech at the grand square of Siirt for the “opening ceremony”, while CHP was given a narrow space for the “rally.”
They also may not want to give the same venue for all the parties because they want to avoid comparing the number of people who showed up in the meetings. It is easier to compare when the places are the same.
The numbers, however, are important for Erdogan. As a matter of fact, he said at the Siirt rally, “Mersin could not gather as many people as here.”
I don’t believe that this is of great importance, especially in an environment where the government tries to deter opponents from taking to the streets and squares with veiled threats such as “our breath is on your shoulder”. However, according to HaberReport’s estimation using the “mapchecking.com” site technique, Erdoğan gathered a mass of approximately 6,500 people in Siirt, the town that he got elected for the first time in the parliament, and also a hometown of his wife, Emine Erdoğan. According to the same account, at least 44,000 people attended the CHP Mersin rally. I say “at least” because the site noted that the crowd gathered on the side roads could not be estimated due to the narrow area.
Street vs square problem of the ruling block
The street-square problem in the ruling wing emerged at an opening ceremony in the Elbistan district of Kahramanmaraş, the hometown of AKP Group Deputy Chairman Mahir Ünal. Ünal reproached the fact that the participation in the ceremony was almost only limited to the local administrators of the AKP, saying, “No one has come anyway”.
Erdogan had recently asked party organizations to go door to door and reach 84 million Turkish citizens to tell them about AKP’s success and what would happen to people if AKP didn’t rule. However, I think doing such visits will become more difficult for both the AKP and the MHP as the current economic distress increases.
The inflation rate, announced by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) as 3.5 percent in November and 21.3 percent annually, was like an insult to people’s intelligence and wallets. According to the calculations of the Inflation Research Group (ENAgroup), composed of independent economists, November inflation was 9.9 percent and annual inflation was 58.6 percent.
On the same day, Kılıçdaroğlu scheduled a visit to TUIK, to emphasize the difference of the changes in the calculations, but was prevented from entering the premises. As CHP leader criticized being rejected to enter the public office, the visit was condemned as a “raid” and a “provocation”, by the government and media. “State institutions are not your whipping boy,” Erdogan said in Siirt.
But this outburst drew the public’s attention to what Kılıçdaroğlu wanted to emphasize: “the numbers lie” dilemma, whether it would strike a positive reaction or a negative one.
Mersin messages: first person singular
Before moving on to Kılıçdaroğlu’s Mersin messages and especially his discourse of “I have an oath”, one more detail should be noted. Sabah writer Dilek Güngör, who gave inside information about the government’s economic policies, posted the following tweet:
“I congratulate TUIK which caused the spectacle at the door by not giving an appointment to CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu!!” Undoubtedly, it reflects an atmosphere inside. I wonder what the institutions that Kılıçdaroğlu will ask for an appointment will do from now on? It is understood that prohibition began to backfire.
Formally, the most prominent feature in Kılıçdaroğlu’s Mersin speech was that the CHP leader spoke mainly in the first person singular form, that is, in the “I” mode. Kılıçdaroğlu’s transition from “first-person plural”, that is, “we” to “I” in the last few months, is remarkable. This may be seen as a signal for the Presidential candidacy of the Nation Alliance by some; especially considering that Ekrem İmamoğlu, Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and Mansur Yavaş, Mayor of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, did not go to Mersin and stayed at work. It looks like the nomination issue will soon become clear.
“I have an oath” speech
The most striking part of Kılıçdaroğlu’s speech was the part that started with “I have a promise”.
He said:
• “I have an oath, I will bring peace to this country. I have an oath to bring peacefulness to this country. I have an oath to bring love to this country. I have an oath and I promise; I will bring democracy and justice to this country.
• “I will change this mafia order and the order that cooperates with the drug lords and mafia. (…) Politics is not a practice of nepotism, favoritism in employment and resource allocation, it is not a practice of bid corruption, bribery, embezzlement and illegal capital gain. I will purge politics completely of such pollution.
• “Let the palace and its hear: I will never let those who take bribes, those who walk arm in arm with drug lords, those who get on their planes, those who take their money, to be within state’s staff, we will eliminate them all.
• “I will protect the rights and laws of everyone who produces, sheds sweat and works for this country, and we will save the citizens of the Republic of Turkey from serving a handful of usurers in London.”
Message behind “I have an oath”
I was listening to the conversation on the car radio. The first thing it reminded me was the famous “I have a dream” speech of the American leader Martin Luther King. King’s speech in front of the abolitionist US President Abraham Lincoln’s monument in Washington on August 28, 1963 was the most critical statement in ending racial discrimination in the USA in 1969, at least on paper.
When King made that speech, African American people didn’t even have the right to sit in the same seats as whites on the city bus. The American people elected Barack Obama as president in 2008.
