Will dictators go through elections?

Is a dictatorial regime in the full sense prevailing in Turkey? The reply is not a definitive “yes.” Some have it that the regime in office is an actual dictatorship, and some that it is starkly authoritarian. Debate over its dictatorial attributes looks set to shape reactions to the upcoming election. Adopting the belief that the regime basically merits classification as a dictatorship leads to the question, “Will the dictator agree to go through an election?” Yes, if the dictator really is a dictator, he will not go through an election! But, in fact, under such circumstances an election is nothing but a show unworthy of the name election. Just as in Azerbaijan, Belarus, etc.

The electoral contest that is just starting in Turkey will be waged in a way that is massively skewed in favour of the ruling alliance’s presidential candidate and the ruling party. Despite this, it is impossible to speak of the election being a routine put on for show or a ruse whose result is absolutely predetermined in advance. It is not a matter of certainty, either, that, if the election results are not in its favour, the ruling power will be capable of organising electoral or counting fraud. There is a huge gulf between wanting and being able to do this.

Even if the power holder who loses the election wishes to defy the result, it is doubtful if he can find the means to do so. It would certainly be naive in today’s Turkey to depict all these pessimistic predictions as crazy rantings. But, for the time being, such scenarios do not constitute the most likely outcome.

The belief that the dictator will not go in an election is generally one of the most important elements of the tyranny that dictatorships impose on society’s political conceptions. In most dictatorships, internalisation of this results in the people failing to take elections seriously and either not voting or voting so as to keep out of trouble. It consolidates the tyranny. Speaking in Turkey today of the dictator not going in an election is in a sense to speak of following in the wake of the prevailing tyrannical order.

Let us for a moment accept the claim that this ruling body will not go in an election. Is it not an exceptionally important goal of the democratic struggle not to let ruling powers cling on to power through fraud and trickery despite having actually lost the election and force the autocrat to announce the election results as he does not recognise them?

Is the difference between the legitimacy possessed by a power holder who has won an election under unfair conditions but truly and a despot who engages in blatant fraud and stokes dispute to turn the results of an election that he has lost to his favour, or turns over the table and stands up holding a gun, of no importance? In these two different situations, the fight that the social opposition will wage will also be different. The results of the despot dispensing at a single stroke with electoral legitimacy that forms a strong and enduring basis for political legitimacy in Turkish society may not be as he predicted.

The most important task facing the opposition today is to convince the electorate so that far more votes enter the ballot boxes than the votes cast for the ruling alliance in both the presidential and parliamentary elections. To take all measures to ensure that these votes exit the ballot boxes in full and are processed in electoral records and that the proclaimed result corresponds to the truth. To strengthen the solidarity of opposition forces at all levels. If, in spite of all this, the result does not correspond to the votes that were actually cast or the ruling body declines to recognise the election results outright, then the area and method of struggle against the one who will have proclaimed his dictatorship will be different. The question, “Will the power holder give up power in an election” can only be answered with the opposition actually having won the election. Otherwise, reaching definitive negative conclusions about this as of now will contribute, even if unwillingly, to an internalising of the fear and hopelessness the despot spreads and a cloaking of his elected status in fresh legitimacy.

 Diktatörler seçimle gider mi?