Kasım İLERİ: How do you evaluate the results of the 12 June elections concerning the political parties and the electorate?

Yasin AKTAY: This result is very surprising in many respects; besides, it carries interesting implications in terms of political science. First of all, this is the third time that AK Party, the ruling party, comes to power increasing its votes and this is the first time that Turkish democracy witnesses such a victory. I am not sure but I couldn't see any other examples of this kind, that is, a ruling party coming to power third time increasing its votes, in European and even world history. AK Party succeeded to achieve this. Furthermore, there is a myth in political discourses considering that the ruling parties always come out of the following elections losing votes or gradually deteriorating. This is the second time that AK Party refutes this myth. Therefore, it can be said that a party can come out of the elections consecutively strenghtening becuae it can be said that this was a reward that people granted to AK Party. For it kept its promises to the electorate in return the electorate kept their loyalty to the party.

What is more, there may be many reasons for the aforesaid myth, that is, the gradual deterioration in popularities of the ruling parties, but two prominent and main reasons are these: First, they fail due to the conjuncture or they are unable to manage their power.They fail to administrate wisely and keep their promises or they lack the principles to do that. They don't have good representative relations with their electorate or they cannot give this impression even though they have it. Second, they don’t want to be successful either because they come to power to do something else or with some other intentions. Instead of their responsibility toward their electorate and keeping their promises to the electorate they just  want to achieve their other goals. For example, they have other connections and try to be loyal to these connections and keep their promises to them. As a result, they try to prove themselves by paying tribute to the other political focuses, thus, they gradually go to failure. 

In these respects we can see that AK Party is very successful. AK Party is very well in giving the impression that it has organic representative relations with its electorate. This is one of the most significant reasons for the success of the AK Party. Another very interesting technical reason that gave way to this achievement is that Erdogan listens to his voters perfectly by employing many different instruments of social sciences such as polls, questionnaires and socio-political analyses. He acts in accordance with the public concerns under the light of these kinds of instruments. Thus, the public see that he concernis about thier demands. When we look at Kılıcdaroglu, he doesn’t have a good management of the social scientific instruments. For example, he fostered himself for not using the polls but instead he utilized advertisements. He spent on advertisements instead of listening to the responses of the electorate. Actually, he came out with ironic declarations in that sense. 

K.İ: The 50 % is a quite  striking result. As you also mentioned there is no other example of this percentage in political history of Europe. What does this 50 % means sociologically and politically? What kind of sociological implications does this percentage carry?

Y.A:  Sociologically and politically the victory of 50 % will create the conditions for the approval of the newly emerging classes in Turkey. These classes are the lower classes that will come out as middle classes or upper middle classes. This can be considered as the confirmation of the circulation among the classes and the social mobility in Turkey. So far, social and sociological grassroots of AK Party was the lower classes or subalterns and they were somehow excluded from the system by employment of some ideological instruments and apparatuses such as nationalism and secularism. Particularly, these two significant traditional instruments of the state subordinated and excluded the lower classes from the system. However now, this migration and mobility from the rural to urban or from the periphery to the center is now accomplished. Formerly lower classes are now at power and this is now confirmed by this result and 50 % victory of AK Party. Such a great tension that the secularist, centralist or elitist caused so far stem from their hope that they could suppress and prevent this struggle and come out of this struggle as the winner. But they now should accept rule of the game that is the rule of law, real democracy in its highest egalitarian way. This 50 % victory will open a new stage in Turkish democracy. I think it will decrease the tension in the Turkish society because everybody will accept the other without insulting, looking down on or subordinating and humiliating. Everybody should pay attention to the rights of "the other" and respect "the other". Thus, this is a desired result for the promotion of Turkish democracy in that sense. It will play a prominent role as a breaking point in Turkish democracy on behalf of democracy not on behalf of authoritarianism or anti-secularism, just on the contrary it will contribute to the development of a functional secularism instead of an ideological secularism.

K.İ: We saw that AK Party could not get 330 seats which means that AK Party will not be able to propose a new constitution even to a referendum solely. So what should be the strategy of AK Party within this context according to you?

Y.A: Actually everybody thinks that this is a bad result for AK Party. However, I think this distribution will be better for AK Party in terms of its consequences. If AK Party got more than 330 seats of the Parliament it would remain under a very tense pressure for making a new constitution solely. If it ever failed, it would remain under another accusation circulating that it didn’t want to bring democracy and reformations and so on. What is more, a number between 330 and 367 would be very stressful, because this number would only enable AK Party to take the constitution to referendum and this referendum would be charged on AK Party solely in all respects from the begining to the end of the process. But now the demand of a new constitution will be addressed to all other parties coming to Parliament. Then the AK Party is strengthened with this 50 %  of votes and the seat number justifies AK Party's demand from the opposition party and will work better for it as well. On the other hand, if the society really wants democracy and more constitutional reforms the charge should not be only on AK Party but also on all other parties and should be shared by them. 

K.İ: What do you think about the contribution of these results-particularly the success of AK Party and that of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to the “democratic initiative” and the solution of Kurdish Issue?

Y.A:These results are not bad for keeping of the hope for the solution of the Kurdish issue as well. However, it is not easy to make a coalition with BDP because a coalition with BDP alone will decrease the chance of AK Party to win the referendum. Therefore, in order to avoid the possibilty of failure in the referendum, an ammendment regrading the solution for Kurdish issue should not be taken to the referendum and the solution should be come up with in the parliament. Thus, the support of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is necessary. Moreover, what gives us a hope or make us be optimistic in this context is that just a short time before the elections CHP surprisingly came out with its program of democracy which included very progressive steps concerning the democratization process. It included the redefinition or amendment of the definition of citizenship which as we all know created a significant problem for Kurdish people, because we know that in the constitution it says that those all living in Turkey are Turk. Thus, an ammendment concerning this form citizenship was not accepted and confirmed by CHP beforehand but now it has been proposed by them. This shows that now it is easy for CHP to come to the same line with AK Party and BDP. When it comes to the demands of BDP, they are very maximalist which makes them unacceptable. They want an ethnic based autonomy but it is unacceptable because such a resolution will leave the people in the region in an insecure environment under the threat of armed authoritarian rule of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). This is not democratic. They want a democratic autonomy but the PKK is not functionally democratic and even BDP is not functioning democratic either, because the candidates are appointed by the tutelage of the PKK. For a real democracy this is not acceptable. However, some administrative reforms may suffice in making the local governments more powerful to decide about some cultural issues and educational issues which would ease the promotion of the Kurdish culture.

K.İ: What can be said about the sociological impact of these results on the Middle Eastern and Arab societies particularly concerning the democratization process?

Y.A:Arab societies and  Arab people are very excited about these results as if they are the voters themselves. We can see this excitement in Arab media. Of course there are reasons forthis excitment. Actually, the source of inspiration for the Arab Spring was the Turkish revolution continuing since 2002. Before the Arabic Spring there was a Turkish Spring that took nine years. It implemented the democratic institutions in Turkey and Turkish democracy. It turned the face of Turkey to the Arab world to the Muslim world; thus, this victory of AK Party created such an excitement or enthusiasm and  made them feel more self confident. Furthermore, they discovered their brotherhood ties with Turkey. What is more popularity of Erdoğan also played a prominent role in this excitement. Particularly beginning with the case in Davos when Erdogan upbraided the Israeli president he became a hero in Arab world. Although it was not the only factor but it can be considered as a compound of the elements triggering the Arabic spring. Now the victory of AK Party in this election means that Turkey will support the Arabic Spring more powerfully and create a resonance in Turkish Israeli traumatic relations which will strengthen the ongoing revolution process in Arab World.

K.İ: As a last question, AK Party is considered and supposed to be a conservative/Islamist party although many analysts disagree with this idea. What would you say about Erdogan’s balcony speech particularly his references to the Islamic world from Bosnia to Beirut and Islamic unity?

Y.A: Actually we should modify the perceptions regarding definition of Islamism . There are some fundamental fears about Islam and Islamism.  Islam is not only a religion but it is also a source of many universal values. There is no need for concerns and worries. What is more, Turkey is a Muslim society and it is not even questionable. The entire world particularly the West should be well aware of the Muslims. There are one and a half billion subjects of Islam living up to these values. In other words, they have their own values and political preferences. These values should be accepted and compromised. One way of this compromise is to acknowledge their values and preferences. Islam has been associated with terrorism and backwardness. However, it is the religion of a civilization and it is not reactionary it is actionary. In the modern world it had no chance to put its values into practice to create a better world because it was colonized and the territories it served on were invaded and treated with a creed Orientalism. When it comes to AK Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is always inspired by the Islamic values. For example, the name of the Party is Justice and Development Party. This phrase of  “justice” is very much rooted in Islam because justice is one of the central elements of Islamic values. What is more, we can say that the interest of Turkey in Islamic world has much to do with its historical and cultural nature, that is, we share the same geography, same history and culture and also the same belief. However Turkey had been ruptured from the Islamic world abnormally. This was very abnormal and cost a lot to Turkey in terms of her position, power and prestige. However, today a return to these Islamic values doesn’t mean that it will return to an armed fundamentalism. 

Interviewed by Kasım İLERİ