BY ERDAL SAFAK
SABAH- Turkey has been floundering in a crossroads where both mined and safe roads intersect. But now it's time for to make a choice. Turkey will choose one of them in a short period of time. In the eve of this choice, the question of how we came to this crossroads came to our mind and we returned to one year ago to find the answer. One year ago, there were general elections and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that they considered different preferences as the richness of our democratic life and that they would never make a concession from our Republic's basic characteristics and again at that time Istanbul Stock Exchange (IMKB) broke a record to close the day with 55.625,44 points - it started this week with 37.556 points, that is, it lost one third of its value in one year.
In those days, we read what were written on expectations about the new period. Here are some examples from them:
Professor Cengiz Aktar from Bahcesehir University spoke to the "La Liberation" and "El Watan," saying that he thinks that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will display a more conciliatory stance in all important decisions and that the most difficult thing to do for Turkey in the next period would be renewing the political system. Aktar added that the nation won in Turkey and now it was the time to construct democracy.
French Institute for Anatolian Studies' expert Jean Marcou said that he doesn't think Erdogan would abstain from a wrist wrestling, because why would he risk the victory's results?
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote that Erdogan plans to implement many things in the next five years and aims that fundamental rights and human rights would be more valid in his country and twofold the income per person in his country. It was added that it would be impossible to reach these goals through confliction and that's why one of the key words mentioned by Erdogan is harmony and he aims that all social groups are involved in the administration. It was also stated that there is a new constitution in the focus of this work, which would consist of not the state, but fundamental rights and human rights which are guaranteed by the state.
EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said that it was vitally important for the new government to implement legal and economic reforms with full determination and concrete results and hoped that these reforms would be ready until November, when the Progress Report would be published.
Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission Co-chairman Joost Lagendijk said that if the AKP continued on his reform path, many things which had been experienced recently couldn't have occurred. He added that his greatest mistake was to think that they could postpone the EU issue and that it would be beneficial for him to go back to reforms in the new period.
The Guardian wrote that the Turkish nation voted for Erdogan for modernization and that it's not easy to make a reform in a large country like Turkey where the diversity is intensive, but Erdogan is the right man for this.
The Times wrote that election results were a victory in terms of democracy in a country where most of its nation is Muslim but we wonder if it would be a victory in terms of common sense and moderateness as well.
I can list hundreds of examples more. It seems true friend tells the painful truth unsparingly. Compromise, new constitution, more democracy, more freedom, a new political system with the focus of human rights and pluralism and reforms which would integrate with the EU. What happened to these expectations that we thought forming the real agenda in Turkey? Were our hopes just a mirage? I wish it was possible to make a journey to the past and we could find a solution to the question of where was the mistake.