We will change
While the municipality operations and the congress debates put the CHP on the agenda, the solution process and the constitutional debate left Kurdish politics in limbo. The way to break the Palace's game once again lies with the people.
For week, we have been watching the İBB operations, which have been going on like a second-class Brazilian series. As if that were not enough, there is also the CHP congress case. The government is trying with all its might to bring the CHP and Ekrem İmamoğlu to their knees. Judicial processes are proceeding with neither law, principle nor conscience.
CHP, under the leadership of Özgür Özel, is trying to repel the attacks and keep the organisation and voters on their feet. Both Özel and the CHP have fulfilled this task so far. Organising two rallies every week and keeping the excitement alive while facing arrests is not an easy task.
On the other hand, the ruling front is very pleased that the CHP is constantly on the agenda through the municipal operations and the congress process. Erdoğan wants to get through the crisis with only CHP discussions, without discussing the big problems that are burning the people. Despite the CHP's activist line, the return of the process to ‘routine’ has become a tactic adopted by the government.
THE WAY OF THE GOVERNMENT IS CLEAR
The People's Alliance wants to turn the new balance that emerged after the March 19 process in its favour. Moreover, it wants to do so without stepping off the authoritarian highway it has entered. They are aware that pressure and force are the only means to keep their rule standing. Despite those who hope for a new constitution or consider it a ‘luxury’ not to engage in this debate, even their own voters do not believe the lie of democratisation.
The constitutional debate, which will not result in anything other than strengthening the government, will not soften the climate in the country, along with the solution process, whose future depends entirely on the developments in Syria. The government will continue to attack the opposition bloc, which it has declared as enemies, and will try every means to enter the ostensible elections almost as a single entity.
What will disrupt the government's game plan depends on whether the opposition is able to produce a multi-faceted response to these attacks. After the 19 March coup attempt, the social opposition forces took part in the field as an active subject and became an important part of the barricade established against the unlawfulness. It was seen that every time the people became a subject, the government faltered and lost its balance.
Although this line of resistance reveals an important opposition potential, it is far from being sufficient at this stage. Because the government managed to create a space for itself in the dust cloud created by the judiciary and with the help of the USA. It re-established the balance at its weakest moment.
TRYING THE DIFFICULT
The government wants to lock politics until the election date to be determined by itself. It wants to achieve this without discussing the rotten and finished order and without putting it in the frame of the people. It wants to conceal the fact that they are the government of a handful of groups that have sunk into the mire of corruption and feed on plunder and looting.
If this is the case, then what is to be done for the opposition has become clear. It is now clear that a politics that does not radically oppose the created order has no chance to shake the government. Against decay and corruption; from education to health, no matter how many headings there are that make the people sick to death, the opposition has to make its pile there. While fighting against the robbery, looting and high cost of living in the country, a call for a new Turkey should be made to destroy the perception that the order is absolute and unchangeable.
“How will the CHP do this when Ekrem İmamoğlu, the presidential candidate, is in jail and there are discussions on the congress?” Or it may be thought that the DEM, which is buried in the solution process and the new constitution debates, is also out of the picture. But all this does not require ignoring the need.
The first way to liberate the political prisoners who have become hostages and to bring peace to the country is to get rid of this government. There is no other solution but to build the mass here.
The opposition forces must produce comprehensible answers to the fundamental problems of the country; they must struggle and organise for the implementation of these answers. This does not mean forgetting those in prison or postponing the demand for peace.
Those who are fed up with this system outnumber those who support it. The people have already made up their minds on this issue. Political parties and opposition forces must heed this call. In order to change the monstrous system they call the ‘Presidential System of Government’, the opposition forces must start from the place where the people have suffered the most. Since 19 March, this is the path that will turn the struggle into a meaningful and lasting success.
Otherwise, we will have to listen to how unlawful the İBB operations are or who said what about the CHP's congress process. This will be most useful for the one-man regime.
Now is the time to hold those who have brought the country to this state to account. Every day, everywhere.
THE WAY OF OPPOSITION
Recent opinion polls show that the rate of those who are satisfied with the current system has fallen to around 25 per cent. Change has become the most important demand of the people. People want the education system that steals the future of their children, the health system that brings death, the unjust judiciary and the impoverishing economic model to change. Everyone, especially the youth, is tired of being spoken for. In short, the people have lost patience with the one-man regime of the Palace.
In the dust cloud that the country is in, the LEFT Party has been carrying out the ‘We will change’ campaign for 15 days at every point where it is organised. The first topic of the campaign was education. They are explaining what kind of an education model should be established against reaction, privatisation and poverty. The effort to bring politics together with its subjects stands out.
Note: This text has been translated from the original Turkish version titled Değiştireceğiz, published in BirGün newspaper on June 5, 2025.
