HURRIYET- Columnist Oktay Eksi comments on the results of the elections held on Sunday. A summary of his column is as follows:
It’s customary that after the election results become clear, politicians interpret them according to own interests, growing happy or unhappy depending on their position. However, then they try to give the results, whether truly positive or negative, a positive spin. For example, when former Nationalist Action Party (MHP) leader Alparslan Turkes received the support of only 6.4% of voters in 1977, he said in order to save face, ‘Since last year, we’ve doubled our rate of support.’ However, in the previous elections they had received only 362,000 votes out of nearly 17 million voters. In other words, doubling their votes was hardly something to brag about. I’m not criticizing this spin doctoring, because the leadership of each party is obliged to do it. However, this time all the parties besides the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Republican People’s Party (CHP) fall flat on their faces. Therefore none of their leaders can say, ‘We were, to a certain extent, successful.’ As a result, the house cleaning which the political parties proved incapable of doing internally has now been done by the voters. All our political leaders have a well-known habit of coming to power but being unable and unwilling to relinquish it. They do this by making democracy inside the party unworkable. For example, they don’t leave the responsibility of determining its members to the organization. They prevent the organization from coming up with opinions and suggestions, treating their parties just like a family farm, refusing to quit the land till they drop dead plowing the field. But the voters ended this tradition and showed all these leaders the door. The voters were furious that they were being made to suffer for the sins of their leaders. The partners of the 57th government, that is, those who deserved it the least, were dealt the heaviest blow.
So many things could be said about the Nov. 3 elections. We intend to tell them all when it’s time, but for now there’s an important point that we shouldn’t miss. As you probably know, our Constitution left the administration and control of elections to the judiciary organs in general and the Higher Elections Board (YSK) in particular. Turkey held clean, honest and peaceful elections on Nov. 3, but we sometimes harshly criticized the YSK because of its decisions during the election campaign. However, today let’s emphasize our gratitude that the YSK administered the system properly. Turkey proved with these elections once more that it has reached a serious level of maturity in terms of holding democratic, free and independent elections. Now it’s the duty of both the AKP and ourselves to show that we have a system that administers Turkey well. In other words, it’s our turn to take a test.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION