Cats off the streets…

Is there anything abnormal in the head of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) telling newspeople that all cats had been collected and none were left on the streets? If in the last mayoral elections the energy minister was cute enough to attribute a blackout at election stations – particularly in Ankara – to cats entering transformers, why not?

Election security is of course of vital importance in any country. In a country where at least one of every two citizens believe the election was won in the capital city by the opposition candidate with changed votes during the “electricity cuts” at vote counting stations, and that late in the night the candidate of the ruling party had “concocted” a victory for himself, election security becomes all the more important. Naturally, after the mayoral election was completed back on March 30, 2014, all complaints regarding fraud were “hunted down” by the YSK one by one. Whether there was fraud or not is of course something irrelevant with the perception in the public that the polls were rigged at some locations.

The YSK top judge joking about such claims of irregularities and using the explanation made by the energy minister of electricity cuts at power stations therefore underlined a rather interesting approach. Even if it was just a joke, now the energy minister is compelled to find another excuse if election stations again go dark, this time during the vote count of what is an existentially important parliamentary election. No one indeed bought it after the mayoral polls either, but if the minister again comes up with an excuse like “Cats entered the electricity transformers, that was why we had power cuts,” he must know that he can fool no one.

Telling lies requires intellect and therefore is a very difficult job. Friends often accuse me of being henpecked and thus sharing everything with my dear wife. As regards to being a henpecked, I always say a man has two options: quarrelling with his wife for hours and doing what she said at the very beginning anyway or saving time and doing what she said right away. That is a reality of life; the rest is just a sheer lie. As regards to telling a lie to the wife, well, white lies can be manageable but for big things it’s better telling the truth, as remembering the lie is always more difficult than sticking to the truth. Lying requires advanced intellect to remain loyal to what was concocted.

It is obvious to everyone that the ship of the ruling party is sinking fast and most probably after the June 7 elections it might stay in government only as the senior partner of a coalition. The advance of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP) is to the detriment of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). If the HDP passes the 10 percent electoral threshold, the AKP will lose some 75 seats and the HDP will have some 75 seats in parliament. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are on the increase in public opinion polls. If the CHP, MHP and HDP are all increasing, who is losing?

In this climate, the AKP has started to panic. Indeed, from the nationalist rhetoric of the above-politics and unaccountable leader of the AKP, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it has been apparent for a long time that there was panic. Getting nationalists onboard to replace the lost Kurdish vote did not work despite all efforts of the president, as nationalist-sensitive segments of society continued to condemn the ambiguous Kurdish opening as a failed effort legitimizing separatist terrorists.

Is it normal in any country to listen to the government when the military conducted a security operation on terrorists, after terrorists attacked and wounded four soldiers, while the military said no operation was conducted on its own, but rather it was ordered to attack by the local governor? Is it normal for the government to deny allegations by Kurdish micro-nationalist politicians that wounded soldiers were left in the field to be killed by the “guerillas” and politics could be made over dead bodies of the slain soldiers, but locals intervened and saved the wounded soldiers, prompting a thank you from the military to the citizens that saved the lives of soldiers?

Normalization in this country perhaps cannot be achieved by just taking cats off the streets…