STAR- Columnist Omer Celik writes on State Minister Kemal Dervis’s search for a broader political formation embracing different colors of the political spectrum. A summary of his column is as follows:
Kemal Dervis is trying to achieve a very difficult task, but if he is able do it, Turkey will certainly be the winner. Creating a broad political formation with a ‘social-liberal stance’ is really a remarkable endeavor which deserves appreciation. However, Dervis has some serious problems concerning both the definition of his goal and his methods of reaching it. A question more crucial than which party or formation will emerge victorious in coming elections is the ‘widening of the political sphere.’ Nowadays, there is a heated debate going on about the search for the best government model which can both lead Turkey to the European Union and which can play its cards wisely in case of a US attack on Iraq. Yet, this debate is again at the expense of narrowing the political sphere, and is evolving around a quest to prevent a legal political party, namely the Justice and Development Party (AKP), from coming to power. However, the aim of politics should be sustaining the rule of democratic legitimacy in the system. If political movements which argue that they are ‘new’ or those who rally for a large formation in the center pursue a goal somewhat counter to the above one, Turkey is doomed to suffer from deeper political crises in the future. Dervis cannot be said to have such an outlook on things. Yet, still he has done nothing to indicate that any such exclusion would harm democracy. Moreover, his quest for a broader political formation is proving contradictory to the nature of politics pushing the system to a deadlock. He is trying to bring together a group of very different political stances towards each other, such as the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Motherland Party (ANAP), the Democratic Turkey Party (DTP) and New Turkey (YT), into a whole. This is nothing but creating a technocratic government or an extraordinary situation in order to catch up with the integration process with the EU and to stay on track with the economic program at the expense of what is political. The social-liberal synthesis which Dervis is putting forth is worthy of serious consideration. I think that what Turkey needs is a political line of this kind. However, leaving aside a model proposed by him in order to achieve such a line, it is impossible to call anything ‘social’ in what he has done up to now. Dervis would do better to rethink the concept of the political and the nature of politics.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION