It was 66 years ago today.
On the morning of May 27, 1960, Turkey woke up to the sound of tanks. The army seized power. However, the Democrat Party had come to power on May 14, 1950 with the votes of the people. For the first time in Turkey, the one-party system that thought it owned the state had been defeated at the ballot box.
But some centers in this country never believed that the nation's choice was enough.
After 10 years, an elected prime minister was put on trial along with his ministers. It was not enough; he was executed.
Today, still no one has been able to put in their conscience the feeling that “those courts were fair”. Because it was not about law, it was about power.
May 27th was not just a coup d'état.
May 27 is the date when the shadow of “tutelage” was cast over the ballot box in Turkey.
Since then, democracy has always been lacking in this country. Elections were held but a stick was always held over the elected ones. Sometimes the military, sometimes the judiciary, sometimes the bureaucracy, sometimes the media were used to try to regulate politics.
The sad thing is that even those who criticized May 27 for years started to use the same tutelary language when they came to power. Because most of the time in this country, the issue was not democracy, but who would control the power.
Real democracy is not just about the ballot box.
True democracy is when the law, not the gun, speaks against the elected.
Not purging people because they don't like the idea.
Not to turn the state into the farm of a group, party or ideology.
66 years have passed.
If Turkey is still talking about coups, if there are still concerns that the law works according to the individual, if people still live in fear of “what will happen to me tomorrow”, then democracy is still incomplete in this country.
Without understanding May 27th, it is impossible to understand Turkey's democracy problem. Because that day not only a government was overthrown, but also the nation's trust in the ballot box was severely damaged.