During this moment of the fascist Erdoğan regime‘s crisis, the labouring left movement must follow a line of political action and lead a discourse that aims to deepen this current crisis. It cannot allow the collaborative ruling classes to continue the fascist order by way of constitutional restoration. Instead, the labouring left must focus on developing revolutionary politics, as well as a liberation front of the oppressed against the schemes of the bourgeois constitutionalists.
The Presidential Government System, a Turkish invention that has functioned as the governing apparatus of the Kemalist republic for a quarter-century, has been taken from the Republican toolbox of M. Kemal and his subordinate İ. İnönü and has since been updated. It was Devlet Bahçeli (MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, “Nationalist Movement Party”)) who proposed to reintroduce the fascist regime model of the 1930s as the government system, in a call for help for the survival of the state. The fascist autocratic Erdoğan regime, coded and constructed as the Presidential Government System, could only be built due to the insistence and alliance of the MHP.
The AKP-MHP alliance, which was established before and consolidated after the coup attempt on 15th July, 2016, is aiming to construct a state order suitable for itself. The April 2017 constitutional referendum brought about a new fascist ruling order, in which the MHP makes an alliance with and vows to support the Erdoğan regime. However, this prospect was already being considered prior to the referendum. This means, the MHP and Devlet Bahçeli can be considered architects of the current regime. The MHP has become a partner to the AKP in terms of state administration, as well as a guarantor of the Erdoğan regime. In its key role, the MHP gained state power and new positions. It significantly grew in numbers through a huge force ranging from the colonial army to the fascist police on one end, and from the judiciary to mafia organisations and counter-guerrilla on the other end. The Erdoğan regime strengthened the MHP as a party while placing the political Islamist AKP in a position to balance and control the state administration.
The 2023 elections, with their many political parameters and results, were a test for the regime. They were proof that the system is defective and the facilitator of its crisis. The Erdoğan regime inaugurated its second period, facing an existential handicap. The “Presidential election system” materialised on two axes. One of them was the fifty percent–plus–one–vote threshold for the presidential election. The other was the condition of making a political alliance in order to pass said threshold. The Turkish autocratic regime created a unique “system of alliance politics”. It paved the way for parties representing the bourgeois order with all kinds of pragmatist, unprincipled, tainted and conspiratorialist politics. We wrote on this matter in the editorial of our 135th issue: “It is obvious that under certain conditions the politics of alliance are unsustainable and harbor many risks under the given conditions. The fact that parties with small voter segments such as YRP, Hüdapar, DSP gained a political role because of the fifty percent–threshold and that the mechanism of alliance politics turned into a phenomenon of small parties encircling and dominating the ruling bloc with concessions, has taken its strain on the AKP-MHP bloc. The politics of AKP and MHP, the main actors of the fascist power bloc—which are not only obliged, but doomed to stay with each other— cannot be sustained forever and are limited. Not only parties with small electoral segments, but also political actors like Sinan Oğan, who have only one election to win a position, have been forced to join this alliance. The consensus between fascist chief Erdoğan and his ruling partner Bahçeli, who had the same goal and discourse in the crisis that broke out in the judiciary, collapsed in a short time. The state crisis, which originates from the structural nature of the current fascist regime, has reached a new dimension. Fascist chief Tayyip Erdoğan’s change of the “fifty percent plus one”—election threshold and his criticism of alliance politics, which he expressed as such: “whose hands are in whose pockets”, revealed the latent tension within the “People’s Alliance” to be a political crisis.
The new level of regulated tension and contradictions within the “People’s Alliance”–bloc forms an important political moment. It might be the beginning of a period of new political alignment. The crisis of the Turkish regime is also a crisis of the governing system that binds all parties of the bourgeois order, influences them and forces them to take on new positions. Whether one supports or opposes the Turkish-style presidential regime; the election results, the current election threshold and the crisis of the fascist regime with its system of alliances draw the entire bourgeois order politics into its own vortex.
If we regard the discourse analysis factually, without delving deeper, we realise that an open political confrontation between and new positioning of the political Islamist fascist chief Erdoğan and the fascist leader Devlet Bahçeli is a new political situation. Bahçeli countered Erdoğan at his party’s group meeting by expressing his stance. He defended the fifty percent–plus–one threshold, which is the basis of the established regime, and the system as a whole, saying: “We elect the president, not the MPs.” Devlet Bahçeli’s insistence on fifty percent–plus–one is due to the nature of things. This should be read as an attitude of insistence and imposition. Devlet Bahçeli and MHP are trying to firmly protect their ‘fortified position’. The 40%–vote rate proposed by political Islamist Tayyip Erdoğan, or an election system in which the person who gets the most votes will be elected as ruler, pushes the MHP out of the power equation.
With his offer, fascist chief Erdoğan not only increases his options and opens the way to guarantee his power. Hüdapar and YRP, which caused friction between MHP and AKP in the last election process, constitute the ruling option as the “political Islamist axis” in the new equation proposed by fascist chief Erdoğan. They do so by excluding MHP, and also imply the possibility of an Islamic republic in the depths of the horizon. This is not an option that MHP will ever approach or support. MHP views state management as an issue of a too existential importance to be left to the political Islamists alone.
The 2023 elections have shown that three bourgeois political axes have been formed. The political Islamist AKP and the small political Islamist parties that joined it—YRP, Hüdapar and the Future Party, which broke away from the AKP—constitute the “political Islamist axis”. The second is the “Turkish–nationalist-idealist axis”, which consists of large and small idealist and nationalist groups from the far–right, racist Victory (Zafer) Party, of which MHP and İYİP are at the center. The third is the “nationalist republican and bourgeois leftist axis” constituting primarily of the CHP. Apart from these three dynamic and transitional bourgeois political fault plates, the labouring left movement is located in the topography of political alignment as the fourth pivot.
The axis of nationalist idealism formed after the elections, strengthened by the idea of bringing Turkish nationalism to power. Caught in the excitement of election victory, the MHP attributed its success to the power of Turkish nationalism and claimed it as a call for unity. In this context, the party called for İYİP “to return home again”. It asserted ideo-political pressure on İYİP and the Victory Party by unveiling its determination to become the main axis of the Turkish nationalist idealism. Therefore, the MHP, whose area of influence is expanding and gaining ground in the state sectors, sees the emerging Turkish nationalist axis as an alternative and a power opportunity against the political Islamist axis. MHP’s invitation to İYİP is a crucial step of this strategy, which takes into consideration the possibility that İYİP could form an alliance with the AKP only under its own control. The photo of Devlet Bahçeli and Meral Akşener in Anıtkabir taken on 10th November is emblematic of this new political composition. Both the AKP and MHP are trying to turn İYİP into a political actor of power equation politics, each with their respective directions and motives.
It is an indisputable fact that the 2023 elections mark the beginning of a new era for bourgeois political parties and sectors. They showed that the AKP cannot remain in power without relying on the MHP or an equivalent bourgeois party, such as the İYİP. AKP is obliged to find new political partners. This reality provides the framework for the search for a new political power strategy for the AKP, that is interested in maintaining its power. After the elections, bourgeois order blocks and parties, both winners and losers, continue to seek a new path, restructure, and take positions according to the new conditions. It should be expected that the bourgeois opposition parties, progressing through crisis, change and restructuring processes, will have different relationships with the AKP or the MHP on these new political grounds. All bourgeois attractions are possible, including options for returning to a parliamentary regime.
At this juncture of the crisis of the fascist chief regime, the labouring left movement must walk on a line of political action and discourse that aims to deepen the current crisis. It must not allow the collaborative ruling classes to carry on the fascist order by way of constitutional restoration. Instead, the labouring left must focus on building revolutionary power politics and a liberation front of the oppressed against the bourgeois constitutional politics.
*Editorial of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated November 24, number 143.
