Revoking the college degree of Ekrem İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s main contender in the next presidential elections, followed by the former’s detention as part of a series of accusations against Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, is another operation of Erdogan’s despotism. The revocation of the degree has no judicial or administrative tie to the operations against the municipality. The fact that these orders followed each other within 24 hours, and the 4 days of his detention were immediately followed by 4 days of suspension of all protests in Istanbul, a de facto declaration of state of emergency, in days leading to the opposition party CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) primary for the coming presidential elections is no coincidence. The whole process has been planned, initiated, executed, and coordinated by the despotic regime. The government coalition’s utterances about separation of powers, independent judicial system, trust in the courts, etc., are preposterous. Everyone in Turkey knows and sees that this is a political operation.
The coup leaders of 1980 were directly vetoing the candidates before the elections! Today, the despotic regime uses the courts instead!
The prevailing international public opinion took this news as “Erdoğan arrested his most significant political opponent”. This perception corresponds to the truth. The Minister of Justice, Yılmaz Tunç, claimed that “it is irresponsible to connect these ongoing investigations to Erdoğan”, yet Erdoğan himself refuted these. Indeed, just two months prior, in his speech at the local party congress in the city of Konya, he used an expression that means in Turkish that the most card is yet to be played, hence implicating the future turn of operations against Istanbul municipality and İmamoğlu. The pro-government media unanimously propagated these words along this exact line; therefore, Erdoğan assumed responsibility for this process from the very start, contrary to the claims of his minister. There is no point in discussing these trials on a judicial basis, at a time when even the government assumes the responsibility for them as a political operation. The despotic regime used the courts and the police force to obtain an authority similar to that used by the junta in 1983 by vetoing candidates by the hand of its executive organ called the National Security Council. This coercion is and will forever be illegitimate!
The repression of the despotic regime and the opium that the opposition offers
The despotic regime knows full well the illegitimacy of its move. Hence, its seeks to repress the reaction they foresee coming through by closing roads, stopping metro lines, banning all demonstrations and public declarations, all kinds of police repression and violence against the people, and, in short, implementing a state of emergency all but in name. However, the despotic regime also realizes that this process cannot be managed purely by repression. Therefore, they plan to exploit the weaknesses of the bourgeois opposition to the full extent. In the coming days, the despotic regime will prefer to focus on allegations of fraud, and theft, seeking to legitimize its unlawful deeds in this manner. The government coalition, which tries to make the workers and toiling people foot the bill for the economic crisis and hence lost a lot of support even among its own base, will attempt to portray itself as fighting against the crooked contractors, exploiters, and henchmen of imperialists.
İmamoğlu’s response to the attacks, saying, “Those who take away my degree today, will take away your property tomorrow”, and hence playing into the sensitivities of the property owners, only serves in the interests of the despotic regime. The opposition party, worrying about the fall in the stock market, and the rise in the exchange rates after these events, declaring that “foreign investment will not come when there is no rule of law”, is placing its chips exactly where the government wants them to be. From the pro-western bourgeois association of TUSIAD to the bourgeois opposition of CHP, this so-called axis of opposition is doomed to shatter in the face of despotism. The reason is apparent. The bosses will immediately reconcile with the government when they perceive any threat to their profits. They did so in the past. Foreign investment, which supposedly values the rule of law above all else, will reach the only conclusion: that the power in place is the only worthy one to negotiate with to make more money in Turkey. The imperialist money-grabbers will not decline to exploit the blessings of high interest rates just because İmamoğlu is imprisoned. And tomorrow when they line up to pillage the public assets in the wealth fund, the last thing they will worry about will be the lack of democracy in Turkey. The repressive regimes are the most dependable servants of imperialist pillagers.
“Tolerable corruption” is the mantra of despotism, it has no place in the ranks of those who fight for liberty!
When there are fake universities in Balkans and Caucasia merely to facilitate the degree trade of high-ranking AKP officials, when the yearly Court of Accounts expose millions worth of fraud without triggering any investigation, when one of the central figures of the despotic regime, the ex-mayor of Ankara, Melih Gökçek, has sold the city parcel by parcel according to the words of a founding member of AKP, Bülent Arınç, when the ex-mayor of Istanbul was released from his duty with the same accusations, it is impossible to believe that this very same government is now fighting against corruption. Yet, in establishing this fact, we should not fall into the trap of establishment politics. “Tolerable corruption” has no place in the ranks of liberty.
Finally, one cannot push back against despotism by lining up behind the bourgeois opposition. The main fear of the despotic regime is neither CHP nor İmamoğlu! They know all too well how to beat them and how to win them over, and use them for their own plots. It was the CHP that supported AKP hand in hand with them as they declared a state of emergency. It was the CHP that enabled the AKP to amend the constitution when they tolerated the illegal votes without stamps. It was the CHP that accepted the defeats without any pushback! Even if we were to forget about the past, today they continue to support AKP by saying, “domestically, we are the opposition, but when it comes to international affairs, we are the party of Turkey,” and embedding themselves into the international agenda of AKP. When the takfiri-sectarian forces succeeded in their coup in Syria, it was İmamoğlu who sent a delegate there even before Erdoğan. Despite all repression against itself, CHP does not cease its support for the reactionary, sectarian, and expansionist policies of the government, notwithstanding all the repression. CHP supports the anti-worker medium-term program of the Minister of Treasury and Finance, the so-called “British Mehmet,” even more fervently than Erdoğan himself!
Property owners fearing the loss of their property will succumb! Those who unite in defense of labour will prevail!
CHP is attempting to line up all opposition behind itself against this attack by the despotic regime. Not satisfied with their control of the socialist left, militant unions, and other mass organizations of the country in demonstrations, they are trying to register this relationship by introducing a “solidarity ballot” in the coming primaries of their party. CHP members will vote in the primaries where İmamoğlu is the only candidate. Others are expected to vote in the “solidarity ballots”. As CHP tightens its ranks, the most militant elements of the movement for liberty against despotism are degenerating within the confines of the establishment, just as it happened in the past. The working class and poor toilers who are leaving the circle of influence of AKP as a result of the crises and deepening poverty, are left pacified as soon as they smell the rotten stench of bourgeois politics in CHP. As much as it is true now to stand up against the operations of the despotic regime, it is just as incorrect to line up behind CHP. The struggle for liberty cannot be won without securing our foothold in the weak underbelly of the despotic regime: in the bosom of the working class and toilers. The staunchest CHP-supporting bourgeoisie will compromise with the despotic regime the moment they fear that “they may take away my property”. The only way out for the millions of workers, toilers, and peasants, regardless of which party they vote for, is to organize and fight independently from capital, state, and imperialism.
Revolutionary Workers' Party (DIP)