BY TUFAN TURENC
HURRIYET- More people voted and participation was high, but the ruling Justice and Development (AK) attracted fewer voters - the only party to see its votes decrease. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his colleagues had expected their votes to rise. The 52% figure cited by main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal wasn't something he said unthinkingly.
Baykal knew that AK Party supporters expected to get more than 50% of the vote. Erdogan reduced his expectations to 42% so Baykal couldn't gloat if they were below 52%. In fact, Erdogan had never thought his party would get less than 42%. The results fell far short of his expectations. I think Erdogan should look to his aggressive stance and behavior for the reasons why the public gave him this warning.
As the AK Party has started to decline and this process will pick up speed, Turkish politics should offer voters a new alternative. The only thing lacking in this political spectrum is a center-right party. So a movement which can quickly turn into a party on the center right should be initiated. Experienced politicians are needed to shape and lead this movement.
Suleyman Demirel, Mesut Yilmaz, Husamettin Cindoruk and Abdullatif Sener should join forces and plan this formation. These four senior politicians could start a mass movement. After it spreads to the entire country, a party should be formed, and a person the public can enthusiastically embrace should take its helm. After the party is settled, they could comfortably return to their old lives, having done their duty. This way a center-right party would be put against the AK Party. Such a party would relieve not only voters who are reluctant to vote for the left, but all of Turkey.
The election results give the CHP some important duties as well. The CHP has no traction in eastern, southeastern and central Anatolia. It's unacceptable that the main opposition party got less than 10% of the vote in many parts of central Anatolia and even 5% in certain places. As a social democratic party, the CHP has to restructure its organization to become a party which can be the hope for poor people in these areas.
The extraordinary performance of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the CHP's mayoral Istanbul candidate, and CHP Istanbul provincial head Gursel Tekin can be a good model for its leadership. The CHP should also change its approach in eastern and southeastern Anatolia to win over the people living there. The CHP should know that unless it does these things, it can never be the ruling party.