Hijacking the Opposition: Is This the End of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey? (Turning Points) #3

🎙️ Our "Turning Points" season pivots from the dramatic electoral shifts in Hungary to a sudden constitutional crisis in Turkey. In an unprecedented move, a regional court has annulled the 2023 congress of the main opposition party (CHP), effectively decapitating its elected leadership and handing control back to a defeated old guard.

In this episode, Erdem and Kristóf dissect how Erdoğan is attempting to engineer a "controlled opposition." Together, we trace the roots of this drastic state intervention back to the CHP's sweeping victories in the 2024 local elections. Those wins signaled a credible threat to the ruling AKP, which is currently struggling to maintain its popularity amidst a crippled economy, soaring inflation, and mounting public anger.

The conversation pushes hard against the limits of traditional party politics in a deeply authoritarian landscape. By exploiting internal factionalism and relying on archaic legal mechanisms, the regime has paralyzed the institutional opposition, raising serious fears that Turkey's multi-party system has effectively come to an end. Drawing comparisons to the political stagnation of pre-2026 Hungary, we ask whether hoping for a return to democratic "normalcy" within the current parliamentary framework is a trap.

Can grassroots, grievance-based politics—such as the recent wildcat miners' strikes or a resurgence of the Gezi spirit—overcome a captured institutional opposition? How will the Kurdish political base react to the crushing of the main  republican party? And what happens when the opposition's political imagination remains entirely limited to political parties that the state can dismantle at will?

🎧 Tune into This Authoritarian Life — "Hijacking the Opposition: Is This the End of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey?", with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren. Third episode in Season 3 exploring authoritarian turning points.

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Transcript

Erdem Evren: 0:01

When it comes to the reaction of the public, as far as I can see, people are shocked, are very angry. They also recognize that this is really something very unprecedented. I think they feel violated, even that their will has been violated. So it's also very emotional at the same time, I think, that this party, even though you know you may have criticized it for your entire life, now is taken away from you.

Kristóf Szombati: 0:26

You're listening to This Authoritarian Life, a podcast in which we explore everyday human stories to make sense of authoritarian politics. My name is Kristóf Szombati.

Erdem Evren: 0:38

And I'm Erdem Evren.

Kristóf Szombati: 0:47

So welcome back, listeners of This Authoritarian Life. When we started this latest season of our podcast, we thought with Erdem that we were mainly going to be talking about Hungary because there was clearly a turning point, which we could already see before the elections. And these conversations on Hungary will continue because there's a lot to talk about and the process of post-illiberalism, so what comes after Orban is still just unfolding. But in the meantime, we've seen some interesting developments in Turkey, partly unexpected, partly expected, I would say, and we thought that we would turn the tables around and I would ask Erdem to lead us into them and contextualize them because I think there's very little actually, that's been reported in the international media on what happened in the last two weeks. And it's also very difficult to make sense of it. It's kind of opaque. So, what happened? I'll just give you a very brief kind of intro and then I'll ask Erdem to expound on that or to say more about it. I think it was on the 21st of May, a regional court in Turkey basically removed the leader of the main opposition party. This is two years before the next scheduled presidential elections. And this seems to be a turning point because this is an unprecedented move in Turkey, even though there is a lot of precedence for the state to mingle in party affairs. But to do such a radical move is kind of out of out of the ordinary. And it did trigger a very strong societal response. So actually, one of my students who is Turkish was on the streets, about a hundred meters from the party headquarters of the main opposition party, which is called the CHP. It's the Social Democratic Party. And I'm going to ask Erdem right now, immediately, to jump into it and tell us a bit what happened now and what is the longer process that we need to take into account to understand this court decision, which kind of came out of the blue. So what happened?

Erdem Evren: 3:07

Well what happened? As you said on the twenty first of May, a regional court practically annulled the last two Congresses of CHP. The second one is less important for us, but the one that took place in November 2023 is. It has been nullified, as they say apparently in this legal language. So the state is basically telling the party that we're going to act as if you know that Congress has not even happened. Those, you know, people who've been elected, including the leaders, are actually not, you know the party leadership anymore. And what I do temporarily, and this is also important, that is I will hand in the party to the previous leaders, that is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and to his team, which also obviously renders the current leadership completely powerless. They no longer control the party apparatus. And three days later, and this was maybe the more unexpected part that this happened so quickly, those MPs and those party members, those delegates close to Kılıçdaroğlu, the former leader, basically wanted to enter the party headquarters. And the current leadership and their supporters who are the majority barricaded themselves from inside the party headquarters and very actually I have to say bravely defended their party against this scandalous intervention. But not long after the police showed up and they literally cut the doors in the party headquarters and entered the party headquarters, pepper sprayed the people inside the party headquarters, went up to the twelfth floor, that is the leadership floor apparently, handed in the decision to the party leader, Özgür Özel, and asked him to you know, just leave the party, simply. And that's what he did. He gathered all his supporters and he marched from the party headquarters in Ankara to the parliament, signalling that, you know, it's not over, but our new headquarters, so to speak, is the parliament itself. Now this is unprecedented in many ways. This is the very first time, at least since 1950, that the ruling party attacks and paralyzes the main opposition party in such a way. It is unprecedented in the sense that there is such a powerful crack, division within the main opposition party that actually becomes very useful for Erdoğan. And more importantly, it's very clear that given that Kılıçdaroğlu is now the appointed leader of the main opposition party, what we have is no more than a controlled opposition. At least that's the one that is in charge of the party apparatus at least. So, in that sense, many people are worried that the multi-party system in Turkey may have actually come to an end. And not only that, but the very basic tenets of republicanism that should be sacrosanct for all political parties and all citizens, are also very clearly being violated. So in that sense, yes, this is very much unprecedented and this really takes us into another direction, I think. Or at least we have reached another level, if you like, in the history of the authoritarianism under the AKP regime, and Erdoğan.

Kristóf Szombati: 7:23

So you already mentioned two things that I think are important to dig a bit deeper into. One is I know we're not jurists, and it must be very complicated from a legal perspective, but still you mentioned that it's the ruling party intervening into the affairs of an opposition party. Legally speaking, this was a regional court, right, that took this unprecedented decision. So is it clear to the public that is watching or the people who are intervening in the public debate, that this is really the hegemonic dominant party's hand that is intervening through the court into the opposition's kind of internal political life?

Erdem Evren: 8:10

Well yes and no. As far as most jurists are concerned, this is absolutely illegal in the sense that a regional court has absolutely no say on the workings or how a political party basically elects its leader. This is very clearly up to the higher council of elections, the YSK. So in that sense, I think pretty much everyone agrees that you know this is a very clearly a political decision taken by the ruling party by Erdoğan to paralyze and divide and conquer the main opposition party. But at the same time, because it is the CHP delegates from the party congress of 2023 that actually kickstarted this process. Because it's them who took this to the court in the first place. Now the AKP members and Erdoğan and you know the pro-government media can say that we have nothing to do with this. This is an intra-CHP affair. You know, the court decided in this way and that way, but we have absolutely nothing to do with what has happened. You know, this is basically a simple fight between the Kılıçdaroğlu supporters and the Özgür Özel and İmamoğlu supporters. So in that sense, it is, it may not be that clear, at least, definitely, for most of the you know supporters of the AKP and MHP. Although, according to some polls, they also seem to be quite uncomfortable about this decision. And also third, yes, annulment is also, I think, the term that they use for justifying this decision is called Mutlak Butlan. We hadn't heard of this term at all before. It's just like many other legal terms, it comes from Ottoman Turkish. And it's I think even means something more than annulment. It means nullification. An absolute nullification, I think, would probably be the best translation. To the extent that it says I basically I will, the state, with this decision or the courts with this decision is saying that with this decision I'll be acting as if the Congress of 2023 has never happened. You know, it doesn't exist. And this is a very archaic legal mechanism that the AKP chose to resort to. And I think they also have a bit of a problem explaining like what it means, like why such a drastic decision and why now and so on so forth. So I think this is one of the struggles at the moment, kind of explaining to the public and mainly to the non-CHP electorate that you know this is such a crazy illegal decision.

Kristóf Szombati: 11:26

So let's come to interpretation. Why do you think this was necessary, this pretty drastic and unprecedented intrusion into the life of the main opposition party? Is it because the opposition has fared better? That's something as an external observer I saw, and that many of us saw that when the party changed hands in ’23, as far as I remember, under the new leader, Özel. They, you know, they did much better. They won the mayoral elections, the local elections, a few months after the new leadership came in. So is that one of the possible readings that there is fear on behalf of Erdoğan that he would lose the next election?

Erdem Evren: 12:14

Absolutely, absolutely. So let me take us back to 2023, to the last presidential elections. So in that election, actually quite unexpectedly, the opposition's candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who now happens to be the appointed leader of CHP, lost the presidential elections to Erdoğan relatively closely. So it was like 52% to 48%. After which obviously the opposition within the party, that is İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul or the former mayor of Istanbul and his ally Özel, who was like a heavyweight within CHP already, decided to change things in the party and they took it to this notorious Congress. But already this raised the votes of the party and we very quickly saw that in March 2024 in the local elections where the cumulative party vote actually was around 30% for the very first time since forty years, 45 years and more than AKP, Erdoğan’s party by the way. And not only that but the party won all the major cities, Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir. But more unexpectedly, for the very very first time in 40-50 years, CHP also got municipalities in Anatolia, even in like very very conservative places. That still shocks me. And not only that, but they also won the majority of municipalities also in big cities and also those municipalities that are deemed very conservative or very nationalist or very pro-government. So I think this already signaled to Erdoğan that things are not going alright, even though he had just won the presidential elections, actually, which was his biggest dream. Also, at the same time, the economy has been doing pretty badly for a very long time by now. I mean, the devaluation of the lira has been a constant in our lives for a very long time. After the presidential elections, Erdoğan brought a let's say a pro-IMF/World Bank kind of economist who has been pushing for an austerity package since then, and people are really unhappy about it, obviously. I mean they managed to control the dollar and euro, but the inflation is still very high. The food inflation is unbelievably high. And you know the best that they can do is to increase the pensions and the minimum wage once in every let's say six months, five months, which is not enough at all, but which also once again contributes to the inflation in one way or another. So things were not going well. But still most people were speculating that I mean what is the big deal? Erdoğan has done it before. Just six months before he calls the elections, he will basically open the state coffers and he will you know lower the interest rates and pump money into the economy. He will, as he has always done in the past twenty five years, buy the votes of the electorate at least in enough numbers, I mean to win. He doesn't need that much. Like he already has, I don't know, together with the MHP, the ruling bloc is about thirty to thirty five percent. That's the ultranationalist party, which is an ally of Erdoğan’s AKP. But then the Iran war and apparently kind of pushed Erdoğan to expedite things, to make quicker decisions because even though you know Erdoğan can speak to both Iran and to Trump and even though his energy exports partly come through other sources. Still, this is going to affect the Turkish economy terribly. And will precisely I think feel diverse effects within six months or a year or something like that. That is, shortly before when we thought Erdoğan was going to call for elections. So if you cannot buy the votes of the electorate, then the other best option, I think, is to just conquer and paralyze the main opposition party.

Kristóf Szombati: 17:31

I mean, yeah, this recalls, you know, what we talked about in relation to Hungary. Yeah. The factors were very, very similar. A tanking economy. Maybe not tanking to the extent that the Turkish one, but still clearly, you know, no growth in these last three, four years. And yeah, the appearance for the first time on the opposition side of someone who actually has charisma, the ability to mobilize, even former supporters of the ruling party, all of that. So I'm actually wondering, do you think Erdoğan was watching the Hungarian elections?

Erdem Evren: 18:10

Well, when we talked about this, I said, well, I don't know. There are probably more differences between Hungary and Turkey than similarities, but come to think about it, you know, this is not obviously the very first maneuver of Erdoğan. Before all this, he basically got İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, the very charismatic, basically leader of opposition, arrested based on some corruption charges, right? And you know, I remember already before you know, Orbán lost the elections. Already some years ago the Budapest mayor was kind of the hope of the Hungarian opposition, right? In the previous round of elections. And I remember it very well that at the time people were actually, you know, drawing comparisons between İmamoğlu and that person, I can't remember his name.

Kristóf Szombati: 19:01

Karácsony. He's still mayor as opposed to İmamoğlu who is now sitting in jail.

Erdem Evren: 19:06

So, you know, unlike Orbán, I think Erdoğan could afford to actually very openly get him arrested and eliminate him as a very serious kind of oppositional figure. And now even that's not enough, apparently, and now it's the entire oppositional infrastructure and institution that he wants to get rid of and he could manage that as we said by manipulating, by using, by building on this division between Kılıçdaroğlu and İmamoğlu and Özel.

Kristóf Szombati: 19:55

I mean, yeah, let's talk about that because it's clear from what you're explaining that, you know, there is a massive intervention on behalf of the state into the internal life of an oppositional party, which points beyond the whole Republican settlement, as you said. But still it seems that these differences actually do exist and have existed within the party. So who are these two people? Actually these are more two camps than two people. Yeah, tell us a bit about that.

Erdem Evren: 20:26

Well, first of all, you have on the one hand those who are fed up with Kılıçdaroğlu because—

Kristóf Szombati: 20:33

Who is he, tell us a bit about him?

Erdem Evren: 20:36

Kılıçdaroğlu is an interesting figure. Kılıçdaroğlu actually comes from the city of Dersim, which is almost entirely Kurdish and Alevi. So Alevism is kind of a form of Shiism in Turkey, although there are some differences, but let's say it's the minority basically Islamic sect in Turkey. So he actually comes from the very margins if you come to think about it. By the way, he's openly Alevi, but he doesn't accept that he's Kurdish or he identifies as a Turkoman or something like that. But then, you know, even though he came from such a marginal position and from a relatively poor family, he went to good state schools and he actually became a state bureaucrat. So he actually first I think made his name by becoming the director of the Turkish NHS at the time when it was completely bankrupt and everything, but still. And then not unlike many other high-level state bureaucrats, he made it to the CHP. He first became an MP. And then after the then leader of CHP was ousted with the sex tape scandal, he kind of became the new leader of the party. And already he had established this image as being a clean hands kind of candidate, you know, someone very clean, not corrupt at all, who was already bringing these, you know, files about corrupt AKP politicians to the parliament and you know, this is how he made his name, I would say. But at the same time, he's very ambitious. To the extent that I think he really suffers from a narcissistic disorder. So we should also say that, by the way, I mean he wanted the power back at the age of 78. So he's not in his fifties, he's not in his sixties, but after losing 10 elections to Erdoğan or to AKP, after losing the presidential elections in 2023, which was the biggest shock probably for everyone, he still thinks that he's actually the right person to beat Erdoğan. And I don't know. I don't know if he would say democratize Turkey by now, but at least to come to power and become the next president, I guess. But this is the interesting part. And after the 2023 elections, Özgür Özel and İmamoğlu made it very clear that okay, you know, this doesn't work with you. So we need fresh blood and we can do this. And they formed like a clique within the party that has the support of the broader public, I would say. Because obviously, as you can imagine, Kılıçdaroğlu was so unpopular after the elections, because it was such a disappointment. At the same time, so you have this, you have those who want fresh blood, those who are with the old guards. At the same time, Kılıçdaroğlu is probably more left-wing than İmamoğlu and Özgür Özel. I mean İmamoğlu himself comes from a very center-right kind of background, actually. Also a partly religious family, also actually quite a nationalist family originally. So he's your typical neoliberal politician, typical pragmatic politician. You know, he can adopt social democratic policies one day, he can resort to very very neoliberal interventions the other day.This is precisely what he did, by the way, as he was running Istanbul. But unfortunately for me, this is his strength, because this is also precisely how Erdoğan operates. Because apparently, to be successful in Turkish politics, you need to be a chameleon. And Erdoğan has been the chameleon of Turkish politics for the past 25 years, and now it's İmamoğlu.

Kristóf Szombati: 25:09

Is there even a policy debate in Turkey? I need to ask this. Because in Hungary, you know, like for outside observers, one of the hardest things to understand was that the election campaign wasn't really about policies. I'm not saying that they were fully absent. The current new prime minister did promise certain things, but still people were mostly looking at, you know, how he functions as a leader. So, you know, this whole question of charisma or the lack of charisma. They were looking at, you know, he's more energetic than Orbán. So you know, these were the kind of... it's the era of, as in Hungary it's called influencer politics now. And you know, so back to Turkey, is it similar?

Erdem Evren: 25:56

I think it's similar. I think when you look at it purely ideologically, if you like, you would see shades of populism, neoliberalism, social democracy you know, all these things in both parties, in all parties even probably, potentially. But what it boils down to in the announcement today is that okay, is it gonna be the AKP bureaucrats and the contractors and the big business and the middle stands, the middle level of capitalist class that is close to the Erdoğan family and the AKP that's gonna benefit from this, or another clique? And at least the CHP side has been promising to do this a bit more democratically, slightly more in a transparent way, in a more quote unquote rational way. At least, you know, we're not going to resort to heterodox economic policies to kind of continue with the system. And as a matter of fact, this is also the weakness of CHP's promises. Because what the public knows so well is that the moment the populist part of AKP's economic policies stop, then this brings more poverty. I mean it is already like people are living in poverty, etc. But you know, cyclically, once in every three years, once in every four years, if you know a person from the party, a high ranking member, you can already find a job or something like that. So they survive barely, but they can at least survive. But what they're afraid of is that if the so-called more rational, more internationally recognized economic policy rules the day, then you know this is basically IMF politics. This is hardcore austerity politics.

Kristóf Szombati: 27:59

Yeah, and in this sense it really matters because you know the Hungarian opposition was able to channel these much more positive, hopeful energies saying, you know, we have been cut off from EU funds, but now we'll bring these back, and it's a lot of money, it's 16 billion euros that can be spent in the next few years. So that really allowed them to navigate out of this space of like you know, the devil versus Beelzebub kind of situation.

Erdem Evren: 28:26

You are absolutely right. The best that the CHP or the opposition can do is to say that, well, we are gonna confiscate the property of this very rich AKP elite or something like that, or we are going to bring the money that they buried in Switzerland or something like that. Which I mean makes sense. It makes so much sense, but which is probably not that realistic for your ordinary, you know, voter who is undecided between Erdoğan and Özgür Özel or something like that. But since we are talking about it, we have a listener question, Nadine kind of asked. Nadine is my partner. She said, well, you know, like if this happened in Hungary, it could sure happen in Turkey as well, right? So, you know, it would take just another mobilization to get rid of Erdoğan and etc. And I was like, well, I'm not sure actually. And then I thought about it a bit and yes, I think the fact that Hungary is an EU member makes a big difference. Precisely for these reasons that the opposition can at least promise to bring ten billion euros if they come to power, something that Orbán was not capable of doing at the end of his rule. But also I think Hungary is important for the EU for other reasons. Now Turkey's role within this big power play is just to you know be a barrier between what is happening in the Middle East and Europe on the one hand, and on the other hand, a place where all these refugees and migrants who are trying to make it to Europe are trapped and detained under horrible conditions. So this Faustian pact between the EU and Turkey that happened in the early 2020s, officially at least, really doesn't leave much room for a huge change for Turkey, I would say.

Kristóf Szombati: 30:44

I mean, remember when we talked about Serbia, we had this episode? I came away with the exact same feeling when we were talking with the two activists or journalist activists. And right, they were telling us that it's the semi-periphery. Basically the question is who is going to exploit us, you know, with the lithium mines and all that, and the EU is playing a very similar game to China. Absolutely. And you know, Merkel's interest in stabilocracy was mentioned, I think. So yes, I think this is a very, very big difference between these two spaces. I'm glad you raised that.

Erdem Evren: 31:24

And Trump, by the way, like the US is very happy with Erdoğan. Very, very happy with Erdoğan.

Kristóf Szombati: 31:34

But let's come back to I mean, I want us to move a bit towards looking at the societal response and what may come, because we haven't talked about that. But just to wrap up this part of what happened and why, basically Erdoğan is trying to create some kind of controlled opposition, using the existing internal, mostly personalistic struggles within the main opposition party, right? And basically expanding and making that division so prominent that it will lead to the implosion of the party, as far as I understand.

Erdem Evren: 32:18

Yes, and not only that, but probably the party CHP under the leadership of Kılıçdaroğlu will you know, find common ground with the AKP when it comes to certain issues. First of all, probably by lifting the immunity of MPs close to Özel and even Özel himself, that's what's been discussed at least at the moment. Probably I hope not, but he will also end up in the same prison cell that İmamoğlu is now. I think yeah. I mean already they brought some files to the parliament and really the next step is to have a vote over whether to lift his immunity or not. So yeah, I mean what is clear is that Kılıçdaroğlu can stay in that position only thanks to Erdoğan and the AKP judiciary. If he doesn't toe the line, he would lose his leadership overnight. So in that sense, it is very clearly a controlled opposition.

Kristóf Szombati: 33:14

Right. This is why it's a turning point.

Erdem Evren: 33:30

Precisely a turning point. Now what is there? The reactions I'll talk about in a moment, but maybe we should also quickly add what Özel... And now by the way we are referring to them as the elected leader, that is Özel, and the appointed leader as Kılıçdaroğlu. So the elected leader, as I just said, kind of now turns the entire parliament into his headquarters. There have been so many calls from the public to establish a new political party, and actually they already keep one on the side to be sure. Because you know, if you migrate into a new political party, you need to have congresses, it's like a long process. So it would take some time to be even eligible for entering the next elections or standing in the next presidential elections or something like that. So they already started the process, but at the same time they are very reluctant to leave CHP. And actually I understand it because there are very good reasons for that. I mean CHP is the founding party of the Turkish Republic. It was Atatürk's party. It has, you know, such a well recognized name, right? I mean I know people who have been voting for CHP for four generations or something. At the same time, if they leave CHP, they would also lose all the financial support, all the money that the parties receive from the Treasury, basically. And the new party wouldn't be eligible for that. And also, yeah, this is like a huge massive operation, like having thousands, ten thousands of representatives, members, delegates, etc., all across Turkey. So the game plan is this, and this I made very clear again and again. Our first task is to have another Congress, push Kılıçdaroğlu to have one, and Kılıçdaroğlu is refusing to do that, and he will refuse to do that. But there's a time limit, probably. That is, they say seven to eight months. And in the meantime, I think probably they will lose their membership in CHP. And that will kick start the process of establishing a new political party with all the promises and dangers that it carries actually. But when it comes to the reaction of the public, as far as I can see, people are shocked, are very angry. I mean they also recognise that this is really something very unprecedented. I think they feel violated even that their kind of will has been violated. That this is really happening for the very first time in 70, 80 years since the beginning of the multi-party system, is in itself, I think, something very sad for many people. And by the way, this is not only for CHP members, but I saw that this is also how, let's say, your hardcore Marxist also feels. Because you know, you may not be a CHP supporter. I mean I've never voted for CHP in my entire life. But your parents are. Because you know, probably it's more common for you to become a socialist if you have social democratic parents, if you have parents who have been voting for CHP or its other variants or something like that. I know people whose parents met in a CHP party building or something like that. So it's also very emotional at the same time, I think. That this party, even though you know you may have criticized it for your entire life, now is taken away from you.

Kristóf Szombati: 37:44

I mean it's also what you know, the heritage of that party, right? Like Atatürk's heritage is also—

Erdem Evren: 37:49

Also that, also this Atatürk's party kind of rhetoric is also very very strong. And actually while they were barricading inside the party headquarters on the twenty first of May, I mean I saw I was following it live, yes, there were like so many Atatürk posters and everything.

Kristóf Szombati: 38:12

So what kind of I mean looking forward, what kind of fears does this also bring or are there any hopes that are dashed here? I mean you just explained that, you know, it's not like the opposition was the carrier of a lot of hopes anyway, but still I may imagine is it like is there still hopes of normalcy, you know, that in Eastern Europe these are what hopes tend to be like. The hope for a normal life. Is it this what is at stake now with the disappearance, the possible disappearance of this party, or what is at stake?

Erdem Evren: 38:51

Not at all, I think. Not at all. I mean, no one, even the most hardcore AKP supporter I would say is not expecting any kind of normalcy to arrive in the next few months or years. Quite the contrary, this is really the harbinger of a much more chaotic... I mean, Turkey has already been so chaotic and so difficult and whatever, but like a much more chaotic kind of political and social scene in the near future, definitely, at least until the next presidential elections. But at the same time, maybe if there is one hope, it is that yeah, this basically brings the opposition much closer to each other. And there are certain signs in that direction. Let's say some other right-wing parties which are in the parliament, kind of made it very clear that, you know, this is not acceptable at all, that we are on the side of CHP and Özgür Özel. We are not going to—

Kristóf Szombati: 39:50

These are the people who left the AKP?

Erdem Evren: 39:52

AKP and also MHP, so for example, İYİ Party is a split from the ultranationalist MHP and they still kind of cater to that kind of secular nationalist vote. I don't know, they probably have something between six to eight percent, according to polls. What it means is something else, but let's say if or when the opposition comes up with a presidential candidate for the 2028 elections, which will definitely happen before 2028, it may be easier for both those party leaders and their supporters to support the candidate of CHP or of the real CHP, the elected CHP, if you like. But at the same time, I think I'm pessimistic in the sense that if you noticed, we've been only talking about party politics. And we've only been talking about politics in terms of parties and leaders and party infrastructures and etc. And I think what this decision kind of tells me is that that is gone. There is absolutely no hope for oppositional politics insofar as you're gonna do politics with those terms basically and with those resources. And in that sense I'm critical of Özel because once again his political imaginary, very understandably as someone who spent his entire life within CHP, is very much limited to party politics and anything that is related to that. That it doesn't occur to him to I don't know, at least have a conversation about, you know, like, I don't know, there are workers in this country, and you know, there's a huge kind of strata of precariat in this country, and actually many of these people actually may be supporting you. And you know, maybe you do something about it, maybe you actually try to bring politics and economy together to actually then decide on a strategy. Rather than just staying within CHP, like hopelessly. Or if it's really about republicanism or if it's really about you know the will of the people if you like, why doesn't it occur to him to maybe kind of call for some assemblies? Kind of really if the government, if the ruling power is really targeting this, you know, leadership, maybe it makes sense to disseminate this power as much as possible? All across Turkey, maybe at the neighborhood level.

Kristóf Szombati: 42:50

Yeah, and I mean there's and the Kurds have because they've been pushed so often into a corner, there is actually some experience of how to do that. How you actually build people power against an oppressive state apparatus. So is there any connection between I mean there's this whole peace process that's at the same time ongoing. So how does this Kurdish element come into the picture?

Erdem Evren: 43:21

Well, the peace process is also something that most of us fail to understand fully. What happened was that a couple of years ago the leader of this ultra-nationalist party, Devlet Bahçeli, single-handedly asked the PKK leaders to come to the parliament so that there can finally be a negotiation and a solution to the Kurdish question. And there are still many things that even the most seasoned commentators and observers disagree on. Like why did this happen? Why now? Is it like some kind of joint efforts by the AKP, MHP, by Erdoğan and Devlet Bahçeli? Or actually is it Bahçeli himself who is taking the initiative and Erdoğan is kind of supporting it or at least kind of keeping quiet, but actually not unhappy about this at all? Or is this some kind of a good cop, bad cop kind of situation where you see Bahçeli as the most enthusiastic supporter of this process and Erdoğan as kind of a silent and semi-critical kind of partner in all this?

Kristóf Szombati: 44:38

We don't know.

Erdem Evren: 44:39

We don't know. We don't know either if this started for reasons related to domestic politics or foreign politics. Did it have to do something about the regime change in Syria, for example? I mean one of the official explanations is that you know the state was so afraid that the Kurds could be, you know, used as cannon fodder by this or that regional force that the Turkish state decided to actually sit around the table and finally, you know, start the negotiations with the Kurds. Long story short, one explanation is that you cannot have both Kurds and CHP as your enemies. And if you look at it historically, this has always been the case actually. So if you are making peace with the Kurds, then CHP will be your enemy. If you are having some kind of close relation with the CHP, then that's bad news for Kurds. So some people think that you know this was already planned quite early on, that Erdoğan already made his mind up. But to keep the Kurds on his side, he had to say yes to the so-called peace process, which is by the way not exactly going anywhere at the moment, but all the actors are still on the table at least.

Kristóf Szombati: 46:05

Are the Kurds silent on this CHP issue?

Erdem Evren: 46:08

Well, I wouldn't say that. I mean they also made it very clear that, you know, this is very unacceptable. They visited Özgür Özel. Well, Özel is very close to Kurds, in particular, and so is İmamoğlu. And they made it very clear in the past years. So I think they have quite close relations with the Kurds. But at the same time, it doesn't matter what you personally think, right? You obviously cannot basically get out of the table just because the government is completely crushing CHP and turning it into a controlled opposition, as we said. So this they wouldn't do either. But how the Kurdish base is reacting to this, I think, is another question. Because already I think they are unhappy about the way in which this peace process has been cooked and is going on. So I suspect CHP or let's say the elected CHP leaders may have gained even more supporters from among the Kurds, I would say, possibly.

Kristóf Szombati: 47:18

I mean let's look at the level of street politics. Cause there was a big protest on the day when the police broke into the headquarters and handed over the court's verdict to the elected leadership. And now it's been Bayram. It's a big Muslim holiday, which means that there's no politics right now. Everyone is with their families..

Erdem Evren: 47:49

It's over now though.

Kristóf Szombati: 47:51

So do you think protests are likely to continue? Is there gonna be like a popular dimension to this resistance or whatever it is? Or you know, yeah.

Erdem Evren: 48:03

I think there is much appetite for street politics actually. People really are very angry and they really want to be on the streets. They really want to show their support to Özgür Özel. And we've also seen this before after İmamoğlu was arrested actually, on corruption charges. But the problem is that once again and maybe on the day that they attacked the CHP and entered the CHP headquarters, there have been protests pretty much everywhere, especially in big cities, like three different protests in Istanbul, for example. But the problem is that once again, it is a party leader and party politics that is at the center of this kind of street politics. It is the party leader that sets the date and the time for coming together. It is a party leader that primarily speaks to the crowds and tells them about you know this and that and what we are gonna do next. And more importantly, we've seen this in the last round of protests, that actually you know the regime kind of allows that to a certain extent. The regime knows or has seen at some point that okay, do that because it knows you cannot keep a protest going as long as it stays as a protest, as a gathering, I don't know, more than two or three weeks basically. It inevitably fizzles out. Either something new happens, a new tragedy happens in Turkey, or you know another court decision is taken or something like that. So there is very paradoxically something very depoliticizing about the way in which the elected CHP leadership channels this anger on the streets actually. I wouldn't I don't know what exactly one could do. I mean it's not like we have a palace. But at least it should start a conversation about this. At least it should once again democratize the decision making process to a certain degree. But as far as I can see, really. Once again its political imaginary is limited to just you know meeting in front of this or that building for two hours and four men kind of four male politicians telling them what to do or what the situation is or what they feel for hours nonstop and people just wave their flags, either Turkish flags or CHP flags or the flags of their socialist party, it doesn't matter. And that's it. Sometimes, you know, the police intervene, sometimes they harass people, sometimes they tear gas people, all this happens. There is still appetite for kind of escalating it, I think. But there's no leadership that is capable, as far as I can see, of organizing and mobilizing this anger properly, beyond party politics and its very limited political imaginary.

Kristóf Szombati: 51:28

Yeah, it seems like to start, you know, gathering those popular energies, well, if you will, against this hegemonic ruling party, you would need to go and dig into the grievances. Like that's the only way, I think, and some actors on the grassroots level would need to build that kind of grievance politics. And then somehow come together with maybe the later presidential campaign. But without that, that's my sense from afar, the kind of grassroots energy being structured along the lines of grievances and coming together into some kind of, you know, not a program, but a set of demands that are, you know, that open up, as you said, the political imagination in a realistic way. It's very, very difficult to see that. But you know we also didn't see it in Hungary. Like, you know, when I left in 2022, the reason I left, one of the main reasons is it looked hopeless. There were no popular energies at all. What I was seeing around myself is and this is what the system was built on was I called the dancing with the state or dancing with those who have the resources and are redistributing them. You know, it's this kind of either clientelism, but it doesn't have to be like this patron-client thing, but it's a set of negotiations in which you get something and you give something, you know, and it's at the workplace. It's in the state apparatus in the bureaucracy. That's the kind of relation that citizens had with the people in power and also with each other. So that's why I thought, you know, if this is the dance that's going on, I'm out of it. Like I don't want to dance with that. But that has to do with my personal biography. But the point is, fast forward two years after we left, and suddenly there is this outburst of popular energy.You know, it was this scandal of a person who was hiding a pedophile in a foster home. And the moral energies coming out of that are what the new prime minister at that time, you know, who was coming out of the ruling party could ride. But at the same time, there was a lot of grassroots energy fermenting around what's wrong with our lives, you know, and how things can be better. And it was mostly formulated around yeah, this set of you know demands for a more normal life, which basically meant better public services, less corruption, more accountable politicians, and an end to the hate campaigns. These were the demands basically, and for some people back to Europe instead of a more close alignment with Russia. And those things could then come together, this grassroots energy with the new leader and his mobilizational capacities. Now I know we've talked about, you know, how Turkey is fundamentally different from Hungary. So I'm very much aware that you cannot take that and set it in Turkey. But I'm just wondering, is there a precedent for the street kind of, you know, or grassroots organizations being the carriers of these oppositional demands and having success in that?

Erdem Evren: 55:04

Well, Gezi was the moment of that precisely. It was completely bottom up, it was unbelievably democratic, it precisely democratized the decision making taking processes, it had a set of demands, let's say unlike other similar kind of protests in the world. Did that work? Was it successful? You know, those comrades are in prison at the moment, so... But at the same time, you know, Erdoğan couldn't exactly destroy the park and build this, you know, hideous building either in the middle of Taksim Square, at least so far. And that I think changed Turkish politics, oppositional politics to a certain degree as well, like the Gezi spirit. If anything has left from it, I think there is some kind of or let's put it this way, that can resurface any moment, I think. So in that sense, I'm not a pessimist. And I see kind of you know parts of it, versions of it from time to time. In the midst of all this like dark authoritarianism and everything, Kristóf, just a few weeks ago, miners from a smaller city who weren't paid their salaries for months were organized by this radical union, left union, independent union. They came in front of the parliament, they protested for days. They were pepper-sprayed, attacked, everything. But they pushed, forced the government to accept the workers' demands and forced the company to pay their salaries. They haven't done that yet, but at least the government found itself suddenly in this like very defensive position once hundreds of workers and their families were in the middle of Ankara basically shouting. So I would say it's those moments that we should take inspiration from. And I think it is those grievances that probably has the potential to electrify a much bigger crowd than just people like me and whatever. People who have CHP family histories or people, you know, who consider themselves on the left naturally or whatever. Because this is another group of people, they're also so much fed up. They also see the corruptness of all this, and more importantly, because the party machine and patron-client relations are not working as well as they used to be because there is simply not enough money in the coffers, and because the power has been so much concentrated in the hands of Erdoğan that let's say the local party infrastructures, the party branches that you know I also studied in my own ethnography in Turkey, they are not working anymore. Like to really resolve some issues you need someone not even from the party but maybe from the palace or something.

Kristóf Szombati: 58:40

So those basic mechanisms are not…

Erdem Evren: 58:43

…not working anymore, exactly. So what that means is that even like even their bases, even their core supporters, I think they are partly very unhappy. Or at least they see that you know this is not working anymore. And more importantly, when that doesn't work, but you see that some you know AKP businessman or someone very close to a high ranking person from the party is still doing well, then that becomes a big issue.

Kristóf Szombati: 59:16

Yeah, that was exactly what exploded Hungarian politics.

Erdem Evren: 59:19

Yeah, exactly we talked about this. I think this has been going on for some time and this anger I think has been accumulating. But who knows? I mean, you know, who expected Gezi or something like that, or who expected this very quick kind of regime change in Hungary as well. So at one level I'm very optimistic in the sense that anything can happen, really. There is enough anger, there is enough appetite, there is you know, all that is there I think. But yes, the political imaginary and doing things differently, the will for that, I think that's what we need to talk about in the next weeks and months and years to come.

Kristóf Szombati: 1:00:06

Yeah, I mean parliamentary politics can become a trap. And I guess Erdoğan is trying to maybe set up that kind of trap. But we'll see. So I guess yeah, our promise to our listeners can be that we will also follow this story.

Erdem Evren: 1:00:22

Yes, as Kristóf did, I'm also planning to speak to someone when I go to Istanbul very soon and yeah, I mean have maybe a better view of things and a more kind of deep analysis than I can offer from here in Berlin actually.

Kristóf Szombati: 1:00:44

No, I thought it was very helpful. Let's hope our listeners liked it too. So stay tuned. We'll be following this up.

Erdem Evren: 1:00:54

So that's it from us for today. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.

Kristóf Szombati: 1:01:00

We would also like to thank our contributors, music and mastering Shai Levy, artwork and graphics Polina Georgescu, Editing Vera Jónás, and our in-house communications advisor Anna Szilágyi.