Former HDP MP Piroğlu: “The HDP is the main driving force of the struggle for democracy.”

 Last month, Turkey was in the global limelight for its parliamentary and presidential elections. Although some election polls and the opposition had predicted the end of the 21-year rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the same political forces will continue to rule the country for another 5 years. However, another fact that emerged from the election results was that about half of the people were not satisfied with the government.

As Turkey’s economic crisis, lawlessness, invasive attacks and human rights violations continued, some opposition parties offered self-criticism to their voters after assessing their failures in the elections. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which conducted an intensive post-election evaluation process, decided to hold an extraordinary congress. Amid the ongoing assessment regarding the election process and its aftermath in Turkey, former HDP deputy Musa Piroğlu answered Target Platform’s questions on the electoral process and the state of the country.

The opposition parties, including the HDP, failed to predict the outcome of the elections. How could the opposition in a country with such deep contradictions not foresee these results?

The election results reversed the great expectation that the government would be overthrown through elections, and this expectation turned into great disappointment and perhaps despair. The disproportion between expectations and results in the election process was due to many reasons, each of which requires extensive discussion. No one can claim that these elections were transparent, fair and reflected the true choice of the masses. We are speaking about an electoral process that involves serious doubts and perhaps a series of moves that have yet to be proven. The election itself took place under completely unequal conditions, and of course the silence of the public opposition played a major role in creating these conditions.

Couldn’t the opposition have anticipated these irregularities?

Erdoğan became a candidate for the third time, the balloting committees were renewed and all the means of the state were used by the AKP. The opposition blindly entered this unequal race by postponing everything to the elections. In the end, the faith that Erdoğan would definitely be defeated through the elections proved to be false. Since the day it came to power, the AKP has constantly put the ballot boxes in front of the people. It is a party that has held 18 or 19 elections in 21 years. Almost every year, under the pretext of referendums or elections, the social struggle has been redirected to the ballot boxes and trapped between the walls of the parliament, the organic ties established by the opposition forces with the masses have disappeared and the struggle has been transformed into a purely representative character. Similarly, serious problems of the masses were ignored and solutions and political campaigns for these problems were not implemented. On the contrary, the ballot boxes have always been presented to the public as the solution. The people have not been mobilized to demand the state to fulfil its duties towards the people; even in the case of major corruption, serious social degradation and even mass child abuse, the street has never been used and the public reaction has not been transformed into an organized democratic basis for pressure.

Who is accountable for this development? What are the consequences?

The main responsibility is on the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is fearing the mass movement, but apart from the CHP, the democratic forces and socialist movements did not use the streets enough and the expectations were reduced to parliamentary speeches. Whereas the state of emergency after the fake coup attempt, the dismissal of thousands of people and the existence of severe repression conditions have pushed back the struggle in the streets, the political subjects have retreated even more, almost falling behind the masses. This situation weakened the ties between the political structures and the people, turned politics into vote-based electoral politics, and the parties lost their ability to mobilize their bases. The problem lies in the manner of conducting politics.

How do you interpret the opposition’s lack of foresight, given their experience of what the ruling party is capable of?

The government’s moves regarding the elections are not unprecedented. Contrary to what is believed, the 27th parliamentary term was actively working. In this process, the government had passed all the legal regulations that would form the basis of the pressure conditions during the elections and afterwards. The only thing that can be done in conditions where the parliament is almost taken captive by the absolute majority of the power is to build street pressure on the parliament. However, the opposition, including the HDP, did not follow a line that led to the struggle to actively organize the street, on the contrary, they kept politics in the parliament. We can say that they carried out the fight wherever the rulers wanted.

he election results also reveal the dissatisfaction of half the country. From this point of view, can we say that the government’s power has been weakened? Or has the government emerged stronger from these elections?

We are confronted with the reality of an outdated power that has ruled the country for 21 years and that has led to immeasurable irregularities. The election results showed that the government did not get the votes it wanted in the country’s major cities. In fact, the 2018 elections reflected a similar situation. The ruling power is the architect of severe economic destruction. The country is facing serious impoverishment. The economic and social crises are intertwined. It can be said that the election results also revealed the government’s weaknesses. What happens next will depend on how the democratic forces against the power will manage the process.

Some describe the election results as a major social trauma. Do you share that view? How can this disappointment in society be overcome?

The political approach of linking everything to the elections, conducting the struggle on the basis of the elections and postponing the solution to the elections preached to overthrow the government through the elections and failed. It must be admitted that the results of the elections caused a great disappointment among the people, and the growth of hopelessness nourished by disappointment. The problem is that, once again, everything is being left to the polling stations as the focus shifts back to the local elections. What needs to be done is to show the masses, who are struggling with serious problems, the field of struggle and the address of the solution. Since it is clear that other opposition structures in the parliament than the HDP cannot implement such a perspective, the responsibility to be the main subject of the social struggle lies with the HDP. The HDP is the main driving force of the struggle for democracy.

How is it possible to carry out a democratic struggle in a parliament where lawlessness has been ‘normalized’? 

Unfortunately, for a long time, there has not been a correct connection between the street movement and the parliament. In the parliament, where the AKP has an absolute majority, the rostrum should only be seen as a place to address the people. It should not be forgotten that the way to put pressure on the parliament is through a mass legitimate struggle in the streets. In the coming period, politics must return to the place where it was born, to the mass legitimate struggle in the streets. It is a reality that the streets have been put under pressure, especially after the declaration of the state of emergency. However, it is necessary to see the reality that the struggle in the streets has a prevalence and continuity even under the most difficult conditions.

When there is so much pressure both in parliament and on the streets, how can the wall of fear be overcome and ensure that these two spheres strengthen each other?

The repression of power, based directly on the violence of the police and the courts, has lost its effect. The government has become incapable of spreading fear. I think this is the main handicap of power. It is not fear that keeps the masses off the streets, but the loss of confidence that they can win through struggle. The political subjects, who should give this confidence, did not play this role because they stayed away from the struggle in the streets for a long time or even fell behind the mass struggle and got stuck in the parliament. In the coming period, struggles should be developed that obstruct the mechanism of repression the government is trying to establish.

How do you see the current government’s foreign policy developing in the coming period?

The AKP government was formed in the midst of a global imperial re-division process. One of the most significant characteristics of this process is that all legal and institutional structures formed during the Cold War have lost both their legitimacy and their institutional justification. It can be said that after the intervention of new powers, especially China, the legal superstructure built over the old strong obstacles lost its mission and a period of lawlessness emerged until the new order was established. This period of illegitimacy has led to a disregard for fundamental human rights and legal norms in inter-state relations, and an emphasis on relations of interest. In this period, the AKP government actively used its power both internally and regionally in the new legal process based on the power generated by unlawfulness and created an area of intervention for itself. Turkey has taken on the role of an interventionist power in this geography, which is almost surrounded by wars and civil wars. In this way, Turkey tried to impose its existence on the international forces. However, the harshness of the conflict between the imperialists, which does not allow anyone to remain impartial, and the fact that the heavy economic difficulties have brought the need for foreign resources to the peak, made it difficult for the AKP government. For this reason, the advantages that it offers in the implementation of its policy of expansion and war against the Kurdish people will gradually push the government towards the western axis of the USA in the coming period. Regardless of how much it storms around internally, the government will largely settle for NATO’s policies and deal with the problems that arise from them in the period ahead.

How do foreign powers influence democracy in Turkey?

The expectation that the government will change with the pressure of the foreign powers, which dominate the Turkish public opinion, is a delusion. Imperialism is in favor of reactionism, not democracy. The imperialist states do not consider the political nature of the countries they have relations with, but whether they are compatible with their own strategies. A concrete example of this is the EU’s policy on refugees. All kinds of dirty deals can be made with all oppressive governments in Africa, just like with the AKP, in order to stop the refugee flows towards Europe. The EU countries also know that heavy pressure mechanisms against the refugees cannot be implemented in democratic governments. Therefore, it should be seen that imperialist policies are behind the authoritarian tendencies. It is not the intentions of these countries that will determine the change of government, but the democratic actions of the masses in the country.