Irrational

You know Bekir Bozdağ. He is both deputy prime minister and government spokesperson. So, he is one of the most frequent commentators on behalf of the ruling party. The other day, he criticised presidential candidate Muharrem İnce. There can be no more natural act in the course of an election, for sure. However, Bozdağ’s criticism came from a totally unexpected angle. The government spokesperson accused İnce of “trying to constrain the voice of the media.”

According to the Reporters Without Borders’ index, Turkey ranks 157th among 180 countries in press freedom. As to imprisoned journalists, we are the world leader.

The managers and columnists of this paper you are reading spent a long time in detention. When they were finally released, they received the stiffest sentences that could be handed down. As to those who have stayed out of jail, they are trying to cow them with damages suits in the millions of lira, as in the example of Çiğdem Toker. Capital close to the ruling party has been corralled into creating media empires. State television is party television. The media not under the ruling party’s control has been pushed into a corner. It is uncertain when the handful of remaining old-time reporters and columnists in the mainstream media who do not bow before the ruling party will get their marching orders.

As such, the only explanation for accusing an opposition party’s presidential candidate of “constraining the voice of the media” can either be massive insensitivity or an intractable break with reality. Neither situation speaks of attributes wished for in those governing the state.

What gave rise to Bozdağ’s comment was İnce venting his annoyance at the Television and Radio Corporation (TRT). The amount of time devoted by the TRT, which stays on its feet thanks to all of our taxes, to presidential candidates in the course of an election is a given. Candidate Erdoğan is way out in front. And, nearly fifteen stations including private stations broadcast virtually every speech of his simultaneously.

The TRT attributes this warped state of affairs to Erdoğan being at the same time President. It asserts that the imbalance comes from also screening the candidate’s speeches that are made in his presidential capacity.

However, it is impossible to comprehend when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is speaking as president, when as party general chair and when wearing his candidature hat.

Erdoğan devotes his speeches entirely to the election, too, and, as such, regardless of which capacity he speaks in, he is essentially conducting electoral activity.

There is no aspect of the TRT’s defence that is can be accounted for with reason and logic. The same goes for the criticism that government spokesperson Bekir Bozdağ directs at İnce. With journalism living though its darkest period in Turkey’s history, journalists battling it out with the walls of prisons and damages suits and protestors including the chair of the AKP Youth Sections just three years ago staging an attack with stones and clubs on the Hürriyet building, accusing an opposition candidate of constraining the voice of the media...

It is scary to contemplate how those who have lost their reason to such an extent decide on other matters. There should be no surprise, either, at a political mindset that excludes reason and logic bringing the country into economic crisis.

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