The biggest handicap of Turkish politics lies not in the wrongdoings of the government, but in the lack of courage of the opposition. The CHP, the country's oldest party, has turned into an institutional example of this lack of courage. A party that people want to pin their hopes on is rapidly melting down due to internal calculations, cliques and personal interests; it is becoming detached from society.
Today, the CHP leadership has ceased to be a political mind focused on the needs of the people; it has turned into a club structure of a narrow circle trying to protect itself. It derives its political energy not from opposing the government, but from its own internal fight. The loser of this fight is Turkey every time.
The biggest irony is this: This country is looking for justice; it is looking for clean politics; it wants the state to regain morality... At this very point, the flag of “clean politics”, which the CHP should carry, is now stained in the hands of the administration.
Rent-seeking relationships, promises made behind closed doors, shady appointments within the party - all lead to the same result: Public trust is disappearing.
This party continues to act as if nothing has happened, even as they watch millions of people who had pinned their hopes on a line of justice and morality represented by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu turn their backs. As if the fatigue of the society does not concern them... As if their own seats are more valuable than the future of the country...
What Turkey needs today is accountability, transparency and an opposition integrated with the state mind. The CHP leadership is not only unable to provide this, but is also busy hiding the rot within. It gives a disorganized, ineffective and directionless image to lighten the burden of the government.
For a political party to be so alienated from its own history and so distant from its own base is not just a political mistake; it is a crime of responsibility against the country. Because if the opposition collapses, the country suffocates. People seeking justice will be left without a voice.
What the CHP is experiencing today is not a choice, it is an exhaustion. But this extinction is not a renewal; it is a moral and political decay in the flesh.
Turkey may have forgotten what clean politics means, but it is not the people who have forgotten. It is the people who have been made to forget... Those who want to make them forget are obvious.
And let it not be forgotten:
Clean politics will one day find its fulfillment again in this country. Most of all where those who have run out of breath left off...