Boycotting the elections

In his column on Tuesday, Orhan Bursalı first summarised the way that the vote could be compromised under the new electoral law and then opposed a boycott of the elections for the following reasons:
“Because elections are the most important remaining democratic-legal right. This right must be defended. To voluntarily abandon this right, that is to proclaim, ‘There is nothing that can be done’ without taking all precautions and doing all that can be done in the name of electoral and polling integrity amounts to total capitulation to the rulers’ impositions...
...As such, I think the call for a boycott is incorrect and is an advance declaration of capitulation...
I thus think it to be a far a more significant and democratic procedure for the opposition to get involved and prepare to safeguard all ballot boxes as opposed to early capitulation such as a boycott.”
These ideas of Bursalı also hold sway with everyone who defends the Democratic Regime and most certainly also with me.
The only caveat that can be raised against them is that the CHP has been unable to operate the supervision mechanisms due to its passive stance over the illegitimate practices that have been conducted until now:
1) It was unable to prevent the Prime-Minister from standing in the presidential elections without resigning contrary to all possible reason and logic and the law.
2) Within the 12 September 2010 referendum, it was unable to oppose both the packaging of items contrary to the logic of referendums and proposals that brought the judiciary under political control and were thus of an illegitimate nature under the philosophy of the Democratic Regime.
3) It was unable to halt the suspension of the government-forming process contrary to the Constitution following the 7 June 2015 elections and the forcible repetition of the elections on 1 November.
4) It was unable to prevent the 16 April 2017 referendum from being held under unequal conditions by means of state of emergency decrees with the force of law, under duress and with proposals that were destructive to the Democratic Regime, was unable to preclude the results from being obtained through a method that directly violated statutory articles and was then unable to stand by the “No” vote that it itself proclaimed to amount to 51.2 per cent.
Due to these reasons:
1) Trust in the opposition’s ability to defend the Democratic Regime has been shaken, and
2) The rulers’ wholesale duress and brazen debasement of all democratic institutions and rules has pushed people into hopelessness and dampened their enthusiasm for democratic methods.
 
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Despite writers like Bursalı and me who “Believe in democratic philosophy and methods and whose expectation of the organised democratic forces in society, not least by all means the opposition parties, is for democracy to be protected and watched over”:
Calls for a boycott emanating in part from well-intentioned members of the opposition and in part from bad-intentioned regime hatchet men are unfortunately proving to be effective in society.
There are, however, two scientific facts that history and political practice have taught us in this regard:
1) An individual boycott of the polls conducted at voter level benefits ruling parties: each opposition vote that is not cast actually counts as one for the ruling party, and
2) A boycott of elections or referendums only carries significance and may produce a result if conducted at the political-party level and especially under an alliance of all opposition parties and democratic forces.
Consequently, electoral boycotts are effective in politics, not through individual decisions, but through party and organisation decisions.
Individual calls for a boycott, conversely, serve purely to strengthen Erdoğan/AKP rule.