BY GUNERI CIVAOGLU
MILLIYET- The presidential election is over if it doesn't suffer an accident at the Constitutional Court. The following procedure will just be a formality. The eleventh president is Abdullah Gul. What will be written and told from now on may only contribute to the future. Let's start with the rhetoric of democracy. In France, 12 candidates ran for the presidential election. The first one got 31% of the votes while the second one got 21%. However, the democratic structure in France does not find 31% enough. Voters will flock to the ballot boxes for the first two candidates again and the one who gets more than 50 % of the votes will be elected the president. That is the democratic process! The number of the candidates is 12 there whereas it is only one except for the other non-functional candidate. The presidential candidates were evident months ago in France. All of them have been discussed by the public for a long time. In Turkey, the candidate became evident only in the last night, which means that the society has only 24 hours to discuss the presidential candidate. Moreover, in France the candidates were chosen in a fully democratic process in their own political organization. In Turkey, on the other hand, the candidate was chosen by the prime minister himself. So is that democracy?
This is, however, a problem of the ongoing system. It has nothing to do with the persons. After the elections were held in November 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) became the sole ruler and realized the presidential election of this year beforehand. Now, that already-held-election will be realized just in form. This is a deformity of the system. The most important democratic revolution is to change the constitution and the laws so that the people can elect the president themselves, such as in France. It would be wrong to think that Abdullah Gül and Recep Tayyip Erdodan have different mentalities. However, the difference between their styles is deep. Abdullah Gul has been trained at a rooted university in Turkey, the Istanbul University. He is an economist. He has a good knowledge of English. He also studied in England and perceived the imperturbable political style of that country. It is also notable that he told the main opposition Republican Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal that he would be an impartial president.