Thu Mar 14, 2024
March 14, 2024

An Election Process that Starts With a Call for War, not Democracy!

In our previous articles, we emphasized that the course of the country includes two different dynamics, one of which is panic and disintegration in the regime’s ranks, and the other is the tendency to violence and aggression. Considering what the ruling “neo-Bonapartist” regime can do in order to survive in an increasingly narrowing economic, political and social field of action, its capacity to get worse and the dangerous consequences that all of this may lead to and that could also bring about its own end, we can say that we have entered a period full of difficulties. 
By Hakkı Yükselen –  June 8, 2022

Elections in a Neo-Bonapartist Regime

Our primary problem for today is not whether the elections can be held, but under what conditions they will be held. As it is known, “free” elections are of great importance for regimes that can be called “new” or “neo” Bonapartism (many names were given due to their difference). This is their main source of “legitimacy”. (“The will of the people”) However, the most important feature of these regimes is that they try to organize the elections in a way that they can win, even if they are “multi-party” and “free”, and they do everything they can, legal or illegal, to achieve such an outcome.

Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the topic of “elections” in Turkey today begins with the word “war” rather than “democracy”, and that the most important problem of the opposition is “election security” beyond ballot box security. In this context, the political problem is tied not only to the numerical results of the election but also to the conditions under which it will be held and what can happen in this process.

We can add to the government’s violent electoral policy, widespread detentions and arrests against Kurdish politics, and the goal of a cross-border operation to be continued until the elections, to the extent international conditions allow. However, considering that an “ordinary” military operation will not affect the election results much, a military operation to be carried out in such a critical period when the fate of the regime will be determined will need to be more profound, permanent and extraordinary, or it will have to be shown as such. Such an environment can be created to enable the government to silence and pacify the opposition as much as possible, and to ban all kinds of political objections and criticism, as a state of emergency.

Legal-Illegal… Cocktail Violence!

As we said, these are open methods of violence that the regime intends to resort to as far as it can afford. There are also some “legal” preparations (among other things to be done), such as the reorganization of electoral boards and the work for social media restrictions, which are also signs of legal and covert violence to be implemented. It is highly probable that the upcoming elections will be held in a kind of “cocktail violence” environment, which consists of a combination of legal and illegal types of violence that the government will use in proportion to its courage and audacity.

Various news, statements, and important intelligence reports leaked to the opposition from within the state, and various state-based disclosures show under what conditions the elections are intended to be held. It is more or less clear what would happen if all these things happen, and even worse if they result in success in terms of the regime. If the regime succeeds in surviving with these methods, a dark period will begin.

Because of all these, the first thing to do is to reveal the real situation with all its clarity without succumbing to fears and worries and to read the election process and what needs to be done through this reality. In the end, even though it has lost a lot of power, the regime has the means of official and civil violence in its hands and can use them in the most arbitrary and disproportionate ways, declaring a part of the people “non-national” and subjecting them to the “enemy criminal law” from time to time and being supported by the fascists. 

Getting Legitimate from Demands for Freedom and Mass Mobilization

We can stop the aggression and violence, palace coups and paramilitary attempts that the government will show in order to stay in power, with the mobilization of the masses who took to the streets with demands for freedom. Even the possibility of this will cause some to stop and think. This massiveness and legitimacy is the reason why Erdogan brought the Gezi Uprising, which ended his sweet dreams (and therefore he could never forget), to the agenda again 9 years later with extremely provocative language (some of the pioneers of the Gezi were sentenced to life imprisonment after 9 years). However, “Gezi militants burned the mosques!” re-emerging a discourse that has led to bloody massacres in the past of this country, points to a provocative attitude that aims to cause serious social tensions rather than discredit Gezi and similar actions.

It is clear that a new Gezi protest will be considered a coup attempt by the regime and that certain forces will be involved in order to suppress it. However, in the event that the regime increasingly sees almost all kinds of oppositional discourses, actions and activities as a “coup provocation and attempt” that must be crushed, a struggle understanding that “takes its legitimacy from demands for freedom and mass mobilization” should not be abandoned.

The fear of being “trapped” by the bourgeois opposition to pacify the masses must not be allowed. The huge mass mobilizations, which constitute the turning points of history and often at the beginning of a “spontaneity” predominate, are open to provocations originating from the regime. However, in proportion to the rapidly growing organization of this mass and especially the leadership capacity of the political forces participating in the movement, they also have the power to nullify the provocations of the regime. Only with such power is it possible to accelerate the tendency of panic and disintegration in the ranks of the regime and to deter the government from its extremely dangerous goals in a critical election process where opposing dynamics intersect. Moreover, this is the way to establish a democracy whose borders and its content will be determined not by the bourgeois parties, but by the working classes.

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