It is really important to put all the pieces in place and take an impartial and objective approach. Today, the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, is in a dilemma between internal cliques within the party and blockages and pressures allegedly originating from the government.
There is a conundrum where everyone is right in their own way and no one takes the blame. Mashallah, no one is to blame; everyone is innocent!
The need for retrospective self-criticism is almost never felt. The possibility of admitting mistakes is a big ZERO.
Without going into the congress trials or the corruption allegations against the municipalities, I would like to make a few points about the party's electoral strategy.
Mr. Özgür Özel achieved a significant success as the first party leader in the 2024 local elections.
Despite a lower share of the vote compared to the approximately votes received in the 2023 Turkish presidential election, the CHP gained the psychological upper hand due to the loss of momentum experienced by the People's Alliance.
However, some critical moves made afterwards led to the loss of this psychological advantage in a short time.
Let's take a brief look at these mistakes:
There's one:
There was no strong insistence on calling for early elections after the local election victory.
When he was the first party, when he had the psychological advantage, why wasn't this opportunity pushed at the earliest opportunity?
There's two:
At the end of the local elections, the leaders of the People's Alliance were not invited to resign.
This political tactic, which was frequently used in the past for Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was for some reason not used against rival leaders. Of course, it would not have been right to ask for his resignation from the presidency because of the local elections, but political pressure could have been exerted through the party presidency.
There's three:
Wanting early elections is of course a matter of preference. However, why was Mr. Ekrem İmamoğlu thrown into the center of the political debate so early, when the election atmosphere has not yet formed and the candidate of the People's Alliance is not even clear? There is still no logical explanation for this haste.
There's four:
“I'm the technical director, I have a double striker”.
But when one of the strikers has been pushed out of the game by political and legal processes, why is the other “striker” not put on the field?
Varan 5:
Is the aim of these strategies really to make Mr. Imamoğlu a presidential candidate, or is it to create a political ground to pave the way for the re-nomination of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose term of office has constitutionally expired?
Indeed, some statements have raised this suspicion even further.
There's six:
With the strikers out of the picture, it is inevitable that the technical director will take the field. In this case, will the party's presidential candidate be Mr. Özel?
If so, is there a serious strategy on how to get votes from which social segments in the elections? It seems that there is no such strategy at the moment.
Varan 7:
It is difficult for the CHP to win the presidential election in a possible early or ordinary election in a process in which the rival is expanding its alliance grounds while the CHP is constantly creating resentment. The vote total of the parties that are part of the People's Alliance is currently 52 points and the polls are more or less the same. The deception tactics of the polling companies are still being flaunted by the CHP administration and the perception of the first party is still being created, however, winning the CB election is important, what good is it if you own more than half of the parliament! The job is to become the President, the rest is just talk!
There's 8:
It is hard to say that there is a strong belief within the party and across the country that the CHP will win the presidential election. Although this is not voiced out loud, everyone is aware that a new congress may be on the agenda at the end of the process.
Conclusion:
In the light of all these developments, unfortunately the following picture emerges: The CHP's desire to be in power does not seem strong enough. This situation is reminiscent of the “keep it small and keep it mine” approach that was once criticized during the Deniz Baykal era.
But politics does not accept stagnation.
Those who cannot fly better, higher, cannot stay in place.
And as a matter of fact, it doesn't.