The death of former Foreign Minister Ismail Cem drew an outpouring of tributes praising his intellect, integrity, and humility. Columnist Erdal Safak, who worked alongside Cem at the Sabah daily, wrote that the praise was well deserved, drawing a parallel to the similarly lauded passing of left-wing figure Aydin Guven Gurkan roughly a year earlier.
Amid the tributes, a quieter point went largely unnoticed: a politician close to Cem suggested that deliberate efforts to sideline him from politics had taken a personal toll. No public voice acknowledged that Cem had suffered deeply from betrayals within his own political circles.
Cem had argued consistently that the Turkish left had lost touch with ordinary people, failed to generate fresh ideas, and could not move forward while clinging to the past. He believed a political party that lacks internal democracy cannot credibly champion social democracy to the broader public.
Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal expressed nearly identical concerns in books he co-authored with Cem during the 1990s, warning that the left had abandoned its idealism while the political right successfully claimed the mantle of reform and innovation.
Safak closed by noting the irony that AKP representatives were then supporting changes to Turkish Penal Code Article 301 while CHP representatives opposed them, a reversal that he felt dishonored Cem's legacy.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in January 2007, in its own words.