Starting again with numbers. Because in politics, the truth is often hidden not in ideologies but in statistics. Numbers remove the make-up of the discourse, leaving the truth naked. And today, the CHP's least favorite thing is the mirror.
In the last six months:
AKP made 664,568 new members.
Felicity Party 67.244,
The Key Party gained 62,491 new members.
The CHP's tally is only one:
19.325.
This difference is not a propaganda difference.
This difference is not a budget difference at all.
This difference cannot be explained by the charisma of the leader, media power or even the pressure of power.
This is the difference in political credibility.
This difference is the loss of moral superiority.
This difference, in Gramsci's words, is the result of the failure to establish social hegemony.
CHP no longer offers people a vision of the future.
It does not produce a promise of social transformation.
He is merely repeating past victimizations over and over again to cover today's political impotence.
The CHP is turning into a party that commemorates the past, not one that builds the future.
He is playing politics over Silivri.
It shows injustice, right.
But at the same time, it operates a silent, systematic and cold-blooded regime of political execution.
Outside is “law”,
“obedience” inside.
“Freedom” outside,
“allegiance” inside.
This is not just a contradiction. This is politics losing its moral ground. Because democracy is not only a value to be defended against the government, it is a regime that must first be kept alive within its own organization.
The price for this hypocrisy is not only paid at the ballot box.
This price is paid in the organization, in the members, on the street, in the youth, in the sense of hope.
That's why people are moving away.
That's why he doesn't sign up.
This is why the CHP is transforming from a mass political movement into a shrinking bureaucratic structure.
And one of the areas where this decay is most clearly visible is the systematic lynching of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
You either like Kılıçdaroğlu or you don't.
You may or may not find it successful.
But you can't deny a fact:
For the first time in the history of the CHP, after leaving office, a chairman has been subjected to such an open, dirty and sustained attack by organized troll networks feeding from within his own party.
He was not criticized politically.
Morally targeted.
Cartoonized.
Humiliated.
Slander.
And it went as far as insulting language directed at his family and his wife.
This is not politics.
This is not a principled showdown at all.
This is the suspension of morality in the struggle for power.
So what did the CHP administration do?
Nothing.
There is no explanation.
There is no demarcation.
They don't have the courage to say “that's it”.
Because those trolls did not come from outside.
Because those attacks were the digital apparatus of the internal party power struggle.
Silence was not a shortcoming here, but a conscious choice.
And in political science this has a clear name: implicit consent.
Even more serious is this:
Those who supported Kılıçdaroğlu were purged not because they expressed their opinions but because they stood in the wrong alignment.
Party member expelled.
The provincial administrator was dismissed.
The city councilor was excluded.
MPs were kept in line with a disciplinary stick.
What was the crime?
Tweeting.
Making a statement of support.
Voting at the congress.
The limit of freedom of opinion in the CHP today is this:
As much as the center likes it.
Looking at this picture, who would become a member?
Who says “this party is mine”?
Who dares to tell their child to “go and do politics in CHP”?
But there is another, more critical side.
This order is sustained not only by active force but also by silent partnerships.
And yes, it would be willful blindness not to mention Ekrem İmamoğlu here.
Imamoğlu was silent in the face of the lynching against Kılıçdaroğlu.
He was silent in the face of the expulsion of those who defended him.
He was silent in the face of the strangulation of internal party democracy.
This silence was not a courtesy; it was a strategy.
Because with every voice that was purged, the space was expanding.
Because when the objectors left, the story became monophonic.
Because silence was the least risky way to build power.
Imamoglu loves the politics of victimization;
but is distant from the victimization of others.
He takes photos in Silivri,
but not a word about intra-party executions.
This attitude does not make the CHP grow.
This attitude is de-ideologizing, decentralizing and rotting the CHP from within.
Moreover, the practice of IBB is the managerial projection of this political mentality.
Corruption allegations are not to be discussed.
Tender questions are dismissed as “perception operations”.
Structural problems in municipalism are covered up with the rhetoric of the “power block”.
But the opposition has no luxury.
The opposition cannot make excuses.
The opposition has to be more transparent than the government.
CHP will hold a meeting today both at the headquarters
both in local governments
risks turning into an unaccountable political organism.
Added to this is the ideological drift.
Right-wing recruitment MPs,
center-right figures,
market-friendly neoliberal municipalism...
“Patience” to the left voters,
the right is being told to “come”.
But politics is not math.
You don't grow as you move to the right;
the more you lose your identity, the smaller you get.
And right here we come across another historical fact that has been deliberately ignored.
The success achieved in the elections held just two months after Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu stepped down as chairman is the direct result of an inclusive political approach that is today underestimated and even forgotten. That result is the belated fruit not of a new strategy, but of a political line that has been woven over the years, that has succeeded in keeping different social segments together, that has established contact instead of polarization.
In other words, that success is not the product of those who have been marketing themselves for the last two years as “we came and became the first party of Turkey”, but of the political mind that was liquidated today.
This is why the “we came” narrative is historically false.
That success was not created from scratch.
That success was inherited.
And then that legacy was consumed ruthlessly.
This is the most tangible indicator of the fact that the “first party” perception, which has been polished for two years, is rapidly losing its gilding today. If a new political line had really been established, the CHP would not be 30 times behind the AKP in terms of membership and 3.5 times behind the smaller parties.
Real success is not instantaneous.
True success is continuity.
Real success is growing in the organization.
Real success is being able to convince, retain and multiply people.
Today we see that perception management falls apart when it comes into contact with numbers. Because politics eventually confronts reality.
Those who dismantled inclusiveness are today asking the reason for isolation.
Those who silenced criticism are today trying to understand why no one came.
The answer is clear.
SOLUTION?
The romance of “let's unite” is no longer the solution.
It is a question of a political manifesto.
Troll politics against Kılıçdaroğlu must be openly confronted.
The perpetrators of this lynching should not be protected, they should be exposed.
Dismissals based on political opinion must be stopped and reversed.
CHP is not a bureaucratic structure with a single voice.
Everyone, including Imamoğlu, should be open to criticism.
Politics is about control, not showcasing.
Absolute transparency in municipalities must be made mandatory.
A CHP municipality is no less auditable than an AKP municipality.
The neoliberal line must be abandoned.
CHP is either in favor of labor, the public sector and the welfare state or it is not.
And most importantly:
Intra-party democracy must become an institutional obligation, not a wish.
The final word is clear, harsh and inevitable:
Crying to Silivri
that executes within itself,
and he can't stand up for his leader.
troll politics,
and not being held accountable at the municipality
purging the organization
a party cannot be in power.
The CHP's problem is not the person;
It is a question of morality, politics and courage.
Until this problem is solved
what closes 30 times,
what is exceeded 3.5 times,
nor is real change possible in this country.