We have previously described the government formed after the presidential election as the third Nationalist Front government: “The new NF government is an alliance of political Islamist and far-right gangs, various elements deep within the state, the construction oligarchy, arms dealers, energy bosses who destroy the environment, the mafia, all enemies of women and LGBTQ+ people. ” And we had stated that the next elections would be between the Palace (the embodiment of the state itself) and the other opposition parties.
The situation before the upcoming municipal elections is no different. The AKP–MHP alliance, which has used all the means available to the state and has almost become the state itself, continues to make all kinds of maneuvers to protect a regime where all powers are concentrated in the Palace to suppress opposition. For the Palace, recapturing Istanbul’s economic and political opportunities in the municipal elections is of paramount importance, especially during an economic crisis.
The entire legitimacy of the political coalition of Islamists and nationalists comes from the elections. As we have explained previously, in this sense, it is different from classic Bonapartism. This is precisely why every election is important for the Palace.
The bourgeois opposition is helpless in the face of deepening problems and is on a dangerous course. As long as the profits of the Turkish bourgeoisie are increasing under the authoritarian regime and they continue to attempt to expand their control over various regions behind the backs of the military, the bourgeois opposition has no plan or even intention to stand against the government. The bourgeois opposition’s solution to the economic crisis is the standard dogma of liberal bourgeois economics. Moreover, the CHP does not even have a clear position on the solution of democratic problems, let alone others, especially the Kurdish question.
Democratic problems have grown enormous under the new regime. The Turkish Workers’ Party deputy Can Atalay’s, in prison because of the Gezi Revolt, has seen his parliamentary seat revoked in violation of the Constitution. No serious opposition has been developed against this violation of the bourgeois Turkish Constitution. In this respect, the task of solving bourgeois democratic problems lies with the working class.
We are entering the upcoming municipal elections in an environment where the people are becoming more impoverished, but the fragmentation of the socialist/communist left (including reformists) is deepening. The competition for candidates, even in the limited areas where the socialist left is strong, also undermines the people’s faith in revolutionary ideas. We observe that the bourgeois understanding of competitiveness has infected the flags of the socialists and their candidates in the elections like a poison.
The revolutionary opportunities created by the deep crisis of the bourgeoisie have been thrown away. Besides ineffectively participating in the elections, the left failed to organize a common understanding of struggle even against a traumatic incident like the Ilic massacre, a major environmental disaster and mining accident in which 9 workers lost their lives. Further, the electoral platforms put forward by the left have had no program beyond patching up bourgeois democracy. It is impossible to be a revolutionary participating in bourgeois elections without a revolutionary program.
The anger of the working class and its search for leadership is unfortunately flowing towards counter-revolutionary forces. Despite its deep bourgeois ties and Islamist rhetoric, the Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi, Erdoğan’s old party) is gaining strength among the working class. Likewise, the nationalist fascist forces that won the last election are increasing their influence among the working class. This momentum points to a rising darkness.
The trade union bureaucracies are not responding to the working class’s demand for struggle. The right and left bureaucrats are sapping the revolutionary energy of the working class and playing a reactionary role in channeling the labor movement into the dead-end elections.
After much debate, the Kurdish movement decided to enter the elections with its own candidates. Negotiations among party officials ran until the last minute and took precedence over the general demands of the people. Likewise, the Kurds did not seek a broad leftist alliance. There is a large section of their base that thinks that their alliance with the socialist left was not successful. Although the quest for freedom for the oppressed, which constitutes the essence of their electoral program, contains progress, it leads the oppressed masses to adopting the tactic of radical democracy, not to the perspective of the emancipation of the working class. Despite this, supporting DEM (People’s Equality and Democracy Part, a new Kurdish party) candidates, especially in Kurdish provinces, is still the right attitude in terms of siding with the Kurdish people against the regime.
Despite all this pessimism, the Palace regime still needs to be stopped at the ballot box and defeated on the streets. Once again, we say “Stop the reactionary alliance of AKP and MHP.” We call on poor, oppressed, and working class people to not vote for right-wing, fascist, Islamist parties, and to instead defeat the Palace regime at the ballot box and in the streets.
We reiterate our call in the presidential election: “As a real threat surrounds our factories, workplaces and neighborhoods, we know that the only way out is the alliance of the working class and the poor with all of the oppressed. Let the parliament, the Palace and the ballot box be theirs, the streets and factories are ours! Let’s leave pessimism aside and return to do work to win the working class back. Because the only key to this crisis is the working class.”
