This AKP strategy will create backlash

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seem to assume that when they attack the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) like this, they will deter their voters.

I am saying that they have crossed the credibility line so much in their attacks that what they have done will create backlash. On the contrary, people will interlock. If the HDP continues to defend peace and to “Turkey-ize,” it will receive the same vote. 

They assume that those votes of the devout Muslim Kurds that went to the HDP and also those of the Kurds who want peace will come back to the AKP. I am saying that this will also create backlash because your pro-government writers have terrorized people so much. 

They assume that the more they slam the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the co-chair of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, the more votes that went to the National Movement Party (MHP) will come back to the AKP. I say, no, they will not come back. Because in this incident, the MHP did not adopt the AKP line. Instead it was the opposite; the AKP adopted the MHP line. If anything, maybe a very little percentage of the vote may depart from MHP and go to the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The voter proved on the June 7 elections that he or she is not a fool. Those who somehow cannot accept the national will in the June 7 election results will hit the buffers in a new election. 

What they are doing right now is gaining one more year for this government that does not have the nation’s approval anymore.

The Bosphorus curse 

There is something called the “the curse of Bosphorus residences” in Turkish politics. 

The first waterfront residence (yalı) disaster in Turkish politics was an attack based on class, by the populist left, on those “who lived in waterfront residences with a whisky glass in their hands.” The populist left was thus wiped away from the political scene. 

Then, former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, even though she lived in a “yalı” herself, came against residents of Bosphorus waterfront houses, saying “they dogmatized with a whisky in their hands.” Her central right party was wiped away. 

Then Tayyip Erdoğan took the stage. Because he was so familiar with the slum dweller culture, he started to directly confront the “waterfront home residents with whisky.” His party lost 9 points in the last elections. 

Now, it is time for the MHP to square its jaw at this target. I am curious now whether the “yalı” curse will also strike them or if they are more immune to this curse than the AKP. 

Meanwhile, while the MHP is striking the “Bosphorus neighborhood,” I noticed that certain AKP members are in glee. I would like to remind them of two facts in life: One is that the MHP does not have a palace or a Bosphorus waterfront residence; it does not have corruption operations dated Dec. 17 and 25, 2015. That means it is free to strike the “yalıs” and the palace. Your A team, on the other hand, has gotten fat and rich enough to reside in palaces and Bosphorus houses in 12 years. 

Two is that you should not forget that a palace is a glass house and those who live in glass houses do not throw stones at other glass houses.

Liberals called to duty 

My source is very reliable. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now starting to lure his old liberal crew once again who are now in a criticizing position. His last move was to invite the former editor-in-chief of daily Star, Mustafa Karaalioğlu, to the palace. It is also interesting that Nihal Bengisu, whose television show was cancelled on Ethem Sancak’s channel, was invited to the presidential plane A330 on the last Far East trip. 

What I draw from this is, first, losing the liberal intellectual circle has made the palace think things over. Second is that despite truck-loads of money poured into the pool, the pro-government and the pro-presidential media have no effect on the population. Also, this has become a fact accepted by the palace. 

For this reason, the old liberal crew is again called for duty. 

There is a new practice that has been drawing my attention for some time in the pro-government media. Despite all the money, the source of which is unknown, spent, nobody is buying their newspapers. Now, they read out on their television broadcasts the articles of their sleazy writers, the ones that they cannot make read through newspapers. 

But that is no solution to the problem because nobody watches their TV channels either.