HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi comments on Dervis’s decision on his political alliances and developments on the YTP’s side. A summary of his column is as follows:
During a press conference yesterday afternoon, Kemal Dervis bid his farewell as a political partner to Ismail Cem, Husamettin Ozkan and the former DSP members who had held high hopes that Dervis would join the New Turkey Party (YTP). This decision of Dervis might comes as quite a surprise for hundreds of thousands of people who remember him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Cem and Ozkan on TV promising to ‘act together’ with them. However, there are some serious factors which brought Dervis to this point. As you remember, in his first statement after being elected YTP leader, Cem said his party wouldn’t ‘enter into alliances with any other party.’ However, everybody knew that Dervis was seeking as broad as possible cooperation on the left. In other words, even at this point there were diverging points of view on the best strategy to take. Moreover, after declaring it wouldn’t make alliances, the YTP surprised everyone following a meeting with center-right Democratic Turkey Party (DTP) leader Mehmet Ali Bayar -- who previously said that he wasn’t thinking of cooperating with a leftist party -- by announcing that it had decided to enter into an election alliance with the DTP. There were even reports in some newspapers that politicians from the YTP had decided to participate in the elections on DTP candidate lists. Here we see the spectacle of a party, intent on coming to power, taking shelter under the banner of a rightist party whose very existence is composed of a list of organizations merely on paper. What is more, as long as Dervis’s participation in the YTP was delayed -- due to unrealistic attempt at alliances -- YTP members were very upset and they became reactive. As a matter of fact, this was first signaled when Cem said he considered Dervis ‘not a determining factor, but a contributor,’ which meant that if Dervis doesn’t join the YTP, little would change. Then the YTP announced that it would take part in the elections without entering into alliances with any other party. All this was meant to signal to Dervis a parting of ways. These are all the factors behind Dervis’s decision announced yesterday. However, the future factors are different. First of all, whether Dervis joins the Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP) or not, his decision is very valuable for the CHP in terms of showing his support. This was what CHP leader Deniz Baykal knew but didn’t say at his press conference at the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Turk-Is) headquarters yesterday. In addition, Dervis chose the path of politics, and he won’t return to his university duties unless something unexpected happens. And what next? This is Turkey. Anything can happen in 24 hours.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION