BY NURAY MERT
RADIKAL- This week people are talking about the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) poll of its members in the upcoming presidential election. This is natural, but I think the reactions against the poll are interesting. The reaction of the main opposition party is known. According to them, everything done on the election is an imposition, but we can't understand what kind of imposition it could be for the ruling party to decide on a president within its own organization.
Debates over the presidential election began a year ago, when I believed that if a president were elected from the AKP, this could raise the tension and so it would be proper to reach a compromise over a name. I thought that the government, parliament and president all coming from the same party could be problematic, even if legal. I still believe that, but the remarks of the opposition haven't been reasonable. While I was thinking there was need for a democratic compromise ahead of what is legal and legitimate, the opposition has declared what is legal and legitimate is actually illegitimate. It further started to say that the regime was under threat. Under these conditions, it became an imposition to advise the current government to produce a candidate from outside the AKP.
This election has different tension factors from those held in the past no matter what some say. Presidential elections have always caused tension and debates, and many times this tension reached a crisis point. This situation was always considered a conflict between politics and soldiers. Some claim that there is such a conflict this time too. We can see similarities, but they aren't the same. This time there is a symbol at the heart of the tension, the headscarf, which was made a political symbol by those who react against it, not by conservatives and religious people themselves.
The tension caused by the possibility of the president's wfe wearing a headscarf is a shame for our country. For years, I've struggled against secularism being shaped by opposition to the headscarf. I've been saying this for years, but I've seen little progress.