A rock star is wanted for the 49 percent
Former Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Deniz Baykal made a call regarding Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the current CHP chair, saying, “If he is not going to be a presidential candidate, then he should immediately convene the party congress so that the presidential candidate is elected.”
And so the topic came forward: Who will be the candidate of the 49 percent? Somebody who is known, who is trusted, who has proven cooperation skills, whose performance is dependable, who can embrace wide audiences and a person who has what we call the “star glow,” which is the characteristic to be loved by crowds; a presidential candidate who has all these features.
Yes, we have President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; what I am saying is that an alternative to him is sought; so that that person could be a rival to Erdoğan in 2019. Not to represent the 51 percent, but to represent the 49 percent. Actually, when I say “rival to Erdoğan” I have a slight laugh.
After reading the features above, don’t ever look at me; really, I will be very busy in the next couple of years.
I’m kidding. But every option is considered now. People stop me on the street and tell me I would be a superb presidential candidate. I first laugh but when I see the seriousness on their faces, I become utterly anxious. Absence of any alternative has reached these dimensions.
Imagine how that would be? The “Blond Chief” is coming… The “sitcom writer of the century” is coming…
The person on the street has a point. That 49 percent is a blend of the CHP, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and a very slight segment of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) voters. Only a comedian or a performer can actually unify such a heterogeneous mass. And that can only happen in a concert, on TV or in the big screen, and so on; not in politics.
The business of finding a candidate for the 49 percent is really tough. A man or a woman who will embrace the 49 percent, but at the same time somebody you can entrust the country with, industrious, able to form a team, solve problems, develop, function the system; at the same time a leader who captivates the crowds with his or her speech, or only by his or her presence…
Yes, for democracy, even though it is quite heterogeneous, the other half of the country should also have one or two rock stars, in other words, an Erdoğan…
Well, of course, when the opposite side is Mick Jagger, I wish the person or persons a lot of luck in advance.
Lack of politician in a generation
You would expect those who were born in the 1970s and early 1980s to have become very competent politicians by now, right? This country should have raised well-educated, quality and world-renowned political figures.
The childhood and youth of a major part of our generation coincided with the coup and post-coup era of the 1980s and politics were not something appealing.
The best students of the best schools joined the best companies. The best brains took the plane abroad and became CEOs and academics there.
Selected students I knew joined banks or became executives, entrepreneurs, advertisers, fashion designers, teachers, diplomats, organic agriculturists, even singers and painters. There are even two comedians and comedy writers you know of, one is me and the other is Cem Yılmaz. These people had two common features; one is that they were all smart, and two; they never ever were engaged in politics.
How sad.
There were only two groups engaged in politics at that time; those who had an issue, who were suffering, who witnessed pain, who were seeking their rights, who wanted to change some things. One group raised Kurdish politicians; the others were raised through an Islamic lifestyle.
At the end of the day, that 49 percent had now reached a stage where they look at me and Cem for politics.
Any lessons to drawn from this? Well, young people from all visions, all lifestyles should be engaged in politics now so that in 10 or 20 years, all the segments of the society can be properly represented.