Kılıçdaroğlu: Blood could have been spilt on the referendum evening

Last Thursday evening I listened to Kılıçdaroğlu as a guest of honour at the Bab-ıâli meetings. Of course, my focus was on the views I have set out in my last two articles, the CHP’s attitude towards the fifty per cent and the CHP’s thoughts about the 2019 presidential elections. Kılıçdaroğlu exceeded what I had hoped for in what he said. The CHP Chair’s thoughts more or less coincided with what I had written. But, let me first impart the stark comments he made about the evening of the poll: ‘We know very well that the ruling party had armed its people and handed out clubs. We received tip-offs and I decided with my colleagues that if we had taken such a move there would certainly have been bloodshed and the process would have flown out of our control into another channel. We are aware that we constrained young people’s energy and history will decide if our decision was correct or not. We cannot get a result through fighting and this will trigger other processes.’ He said this in response to the question: ‘In the face of the council named the Supreme Election Council (SEC) under the thumb of the ruling party passing resolutions that broke the law or dispensed with statutory articles, you did not bear down at the SEC’s door with the masses who had voted ‘no’. Are you sorry?’ (Zafer Arapkirli’s question)
 
 
‘I am aware that I reduced the energy’
 
Do you recall Cem Küçük, who that night tweeted, ‘Arm yourself and come into the street?’ Kılıçdaroğlu for sure did not make these comments based on this summons and certain tip-offs had come to the party. Kılıçdaroğlu, who additionally said after the poll, ‘I am aware that I reduced the masses’ energy by not making a call to take to the streets,’ is also aware of the criticisms over ‘passivity’ levelled against him by activists or wider circles. I have also received very frequent messages. For example, included among replies to my social media post after the meeting, ‘I found his explanations satisfactory,’ were frequent expressions of – harsh – criticism such as: ‘You still hold out any hope from that man ... Even if he were the real McCoy, what use is that from now on? ... That fly will only buzz and use up gas. He is nothing but an ex-bureaucrat who has no leadership qualities. Totally a civil servant.!’ Had there been attacks on the vast crowd assembling in front of the SEC and blood had been shed, undoubtedly we would be saying different things today, but, if the tip-off that had been received was correct, there arises both an ethical debate and also the question of who the results would have benefitted.
 
So, when do polls lose their significance?
 
But, suppose, as events unfold, it becomes far more apparent that the poll was really meaningless and staged and based on theft of the national will? And it looks like the signs will gradually increase that the holders of power are intent on never transferring power. Then what will happen? For example, what impact will the SEC’s decision that rode roughshod over the law have on the coming elections and how are ballot boxes to be supervised? Probably, polls and parliament are to be fully abandoned. Having no part in this game would come across as the most forceful protest and would certainly derail and enrage Turkey. Is the ruling party made up of people foolhardy enough to go even this far? We do not know what we will go through over the coming two and a half years. Bear in mind that steps have been taken to create the world’s biggest media monopoly through transferring the Gulenist TV stations by order with no tendering process or questions asked to the ranks of the regime-controlled media. The business of being in power is increasingly acquiring the character of a ‘collective crime’. Does there now remain no legal force that can oppose the orders which are given?
 
 
‘Their target is the CHP’
 
There is another point to which Kılıçdaroğlu referred: Their main target as events unfold before us after the referendum is the CHP. We know that they have given instructions to state institutions and the media under their control. There will be major attacks on us. If you look at the regime-controlled media, the CHP is never absent from its covers. They are also running headlines about Kılıçdaroğlu that, ‘He is finished.’ Tens of police reports are being made ready about the CHP and Kılıçdaroğlu. Can they dare to recklessly put the CHP behind bars when necessary? But, Mr Kılıçdaroğlu says that they have moved into action to fragment the at least fifty per cent camp. He attributes this to being a strategy to negate the CHP’s policy of abandoning its old policy, embracing everyone and creating enmity for the AKP, and he says, ‘They have instructed their people, party and state to make the CHP return to its former settings and policies and to do everything to this end.’ There is a long course of events in front of us. We will see how this pans out. It is certain that the fifty per cent ‘no’ has shaken things up and made waves on the ruling party front. We will continue.