HURRIYET- Columnist Tufan Turenc writes on the results of the elections in France. A summary of his column is as follows:
Jean-Marie Le Pen hasn't even had the chance to do anything yet, but his surprise success in Sunday's elections was enough for the French to take to the streets. But where is the democratic spirit of France? Le Pen fought fair and square in the elections and so advanced to the second round. He didn't resort to fraud or anything of the sort. During the election campaign he reiterated what he had been saying all along. 'I will expel foreigners, establish security and take France out of the European Union.' The people voted for him. He received most of the votes from the southern and eastern provinces and made it to the second round. This result angered the democratic, freedom loving French people. Now, all of them regardless of political stripe -- leftist, rightist or moderate -- are united in opposition to fascist Le Pen. However, when Turkey experienced a similar electoral shock in 1995, they chided us and said, 'You have not been able to adopt democracy. You have to accept the legality of whichever party gets the votes of the people. This is the rule of democracy. If you act contrary to this principle, you will violate democracy and Europe cannot accept this.' Then they added that they would be watching us. We went through the nightmare of the Refahyol government. We tolerated a prime minister such as Erbakan, who is at heart opposed to our regime and espouses outmoded ideas. This went on until everything spun out of control. Then came February 28. Erbakan had to resign under the social pressure of democratic powers. Among those who didn't accept this democratic resistance, calling it 'contrary to democracy' was France. Now they are experiencing the same nightmare and their very own February 28. Just like us, they are demonstrating in the streets to force the resignation of the man who has been trying to eradicate democracy. One of the reasons for this trauma France is going through is the division on their left. We, too have made the same mistake. If the left had not been divided in Turkey, Erbakan could never have dreamed of becoming a prime minister. If there had been unity on the left, neither Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor Melih Gokcek or others from the Virtue Party could have been elected as mayors. We still have not learned any lessons from our experiences, and Erdogan still continues to be the hope of some. I hope we draw some lessons from the elections in France. At least they will eliminate Le Pen in the second round. And we, what shall we do?
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION