Political parties: Politics cannot be confined to the ballot box

President Tayyip Erdoğan threatened those who took to the streets saying, "As the People’s Alliance, we will drive you away and chase you all to your destination", while members of the Nation Alliance, CHP and the Good Party, urged us to wait until the election day instead of taking to the streets. Left-wing socialist parties have also reacted to the criminalisation of taking to the streets, criticising the method of struggle which solely points at the ballot box. We spoke with representatives of the Labour Party (Labour Party), The Left Party, TKP (Communist Party of Turkey), TIP (Workers' Party of Turkey) and HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party).

"THERE IS NO OTHER WAY OUT FOR BREAD AND FREEDOM"

Ercüment Akdeniz, chair of the Labour Party (EMEP), stated that the impoverishment has increased with the events in the economy and said, "The government, which lays the country's resources, the sweat of the workers, onto the table of capital, is not able to stop high inflation. Exponentially increasing price hikes, extensive poverty, youth unemployment are unbearable. Salaries of workers, civil servants and pensioners melted like snow. Public discontent is piling up, including from labourers who voted for the AKP and MHP. Lastly, tens of thousands of metal workers took to the streets after a long break and held a rally in Kocaeli. Workers, laborers, poor people are looking to make their voice heard everywhere. If labour and professional organisations are prepared and determined, it is inevitable for hundreds of thousands to pour out into the streets. There's no other way out for bread and freedom! Turkey's liberation from one-man rule and its repelling of attacks by capital also depend on this struggle." Referring to July 15th, the ruling bloc showed a stick from a horse to the people tested by hunger and poverty, Akdeniz said. So, what's the Nation Alliance doing? CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu said, "The gentleman seems to want us to take to the streets. We're not taking to the streets. He’s going to push and pressure us, we're not going to take to the streets, but we're going to do what’s necessary at the ballot box." No, it's not like that! The Erdoğan-AKP leadership and the circles of capital does not want people to take to the streets, but stay at home. That's the reason behind their threats. Besides, what attitude will those who threaten the most innocent demand of bread have at the elections about the safety of the polls? Actions speak louder than words; corruption in the last elections has been self-explanatory."

"EVERYONE SHOULD TURN AROUND AND LOOK AT THE RECENT HISTORY"

Akdeniz said that there are two obstacles before the workers in Turkey, “One of them is the reactionary one-man rule. The other is the position of the Nation Alliance, which plays the role of a firefighter, each time trying to quench the public reaction. In terms of the labour movement, we should add union bureaucracy to this. Everybody should look at the recent history. What toppled the Özal, Ciller, Demirel, and finally the ANAP-DSP-MHP coalition? Just the ballot box? The strikes and rallies of millions of workers and labourers before the polls. It's miners’ glorious marches. The public opposition must follow this path today.”

ORGANISED POPULAR MOVEMENT IS ANTIDOTE TO PROVOCATION

TKP Secretary General Kemal Okuyan said, "There is nothing surprising about the constant discourse of internal and external enemies of the government, which has destroyed the people economically. On the one hand, he says, 'They want turmoil', and on the other hand he threatens people with a stick saying, 'If you take to the streets, we'll make you regret it.' The conclusion the establishment opposition draws from this is that Erdogan wants a showdown on the streets. In other words, those who are tired of economic difficulties, pressures, who react, will stage demonstrations, the chaos will be disrupted, pro-government forces will take to the streets and the government will become more authoritarian for security reasons, maybe there will be no elections. Actually, there are examples of that in history. It has been seen that the governments that think that the balance of powers is in their favour, move the street with various provocations and then land their iron fists. But we will not let those who exercise their most basic rights, those who protest the increasing cost of living be accused of playing into the hands of the government,"  and continued, “We tell those parties: ‘Don’t take to the streets, stay at home, wait for the elections. Don't hold rallies, don't show up at funerals, don't organise visits to artisans. Because you're saying it yourself, it's a provocation!' We take our measures against provocations, act with our minds, but spread organised struggle in a way that shows that the people will not give in to threats.”

"DON'T TAKE TO THE STREETS PSYCHE GIVES SPACE TO THE AKP"

Gizem Gul Kurekci, a member of the Board of Presidents of the Left Party, said that the opposition can’t be built around treading on the right of people to democratic protest. Kurekci said, "For all its decay, the fact that the AKP has been able to rule the country for two decades is not only their success; we should also give credit to the opposition. The positioning, which can’t even defend a constitutional right, continues to open up space for the AKP today. In order to win the elections and bring this regime to reckoning, politics must be socialised and turn into an organised public mobilisation. The parliamentary opposition, on the other hand, is reducing politics to a duel of words on the parliamentary benches, whose influence have been reduced to nothing."

STREETS MEAN PEOPLE

Sera Kadıgil, spokesman for the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP) and a member of parliament in Istanbul, said: "No one, no one, can marginalise or tolerate this degrading of the people exercising the most legitimate constitutional right of protest. Everyone has the right to organise meetings and demonstration marches without prior permission. This has always been the first right to be abolished in authoritarian regimes such as the palace regime, which base their existence on fear and threat. The street is one of the most important mediums where citizens, whose lives have fallen apart, can react justifiably against the palace regime, which has seized the media, rendered the parliament dysfunctional, waved judicial sticks at those who opened their mouths and, in doing so, destroyed the country. That's why they're afraid of the street because they can't buy it, because they can't censor it. And they're right. Because the streets mean the people. And as Nazım said, the fear of those who sold their people is unique."

DISREGARDING THE RIGHT TO PROTEST IS HOSTILITY AGAINST DEMOCRACY

Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki, co-spokesman of the HDP Electoral Affairs Commission and a Member of Parliament for Batman, said these about President Erdoğan's statements that "terrorize the street": "The indispensable rule of democracies is that people express their opinions individually and collectively. And the right to express one’s opinions is inseparable from the right to protest. In developed societies, democratic countries exercise their right to protest against what governments, governmental or non-governmental organisations do. And it is very clearly hostility against democracy to portray people who exercise their right to protest, and hypothetical right to protest as illegal and anti-democratic." (EVRENSEL DAILY)