In Turkish local elections, the pseudo-leftist party exploits anger over the earthquake to trade seats

In the run-up to the local elections on March 31, as the movement of wildcat strikes against the costs of living spread across the country and social anger against the parties of the capitalist system grew, pseudo-left parties emerged, especially the Workers' Party. The Turkey Party (TIP) is trying to keep this anger within the confines of the capitalist system and use it to strengthen its bargaining for seats.

This is particularly evident in the city of Hatay, which was devastated by two 7.7- and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş on February 6, 2023. On the anniversary of the February 6 earthquakes, there was a strong backlash against Health Minister Fahrettin Koca. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Hatay City Mayor Lutfi Savas of the Republican People's Party (CHP).

There was also a hostile reaction to the leader of the Republican People's Party, Ozgur Ozil, because the party re-nominated Savas, one of the main figures responsible for the devastation caused by the lack of adequate preparations for the earthquake, as a candidate for the local elections.

As described in the World Socialism website's series of articles on the anniversary of the earthquake, the buildings of tens of thousands of people were turned into graves due to the policies of the government and local authorities run by opposition parties, which put capitalist profit before science and public health. Hundreds of thousands were injured and millions were displaced.

As a result of the state's failure to mobilize for three days after the earthquake, many people waited in the rubble to be rescued and died from freezing or dehydration. The failure of the government and local authorities to take the necessary measures, despite warnings from scientists, made the earthquake a historic disaster.

A year later, the basic needs of tens of thousands of people – food, shelter and clothing – are still unavailable. The promises made by the government and municipalities were not fulfilled. Many people are still forced to live in tents, containers and damaged buildings. This led to widespread anger against both the government and the CHP mayors.

In Hatay, as in the rest of the country, the pseudo-left plays a role in turning people's anger against establishment parties and keeping it within the confines of the capitalist system.

Global problems such as the NATO war in Ukraine, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, preparations for war against Iran and the developing global war, Covid-19 and other pandemics are not on any party’s electoral agenda. Nor do they care about the fact that tens of millions of workers in Turkey, the country hit by the earthquake, still live in dangerous housing. The debate over who should be nominated is essentially part of the bargaining to get into the positions of mayors and municipal councils.

Amid anger against the Republican People's Party (CHP) mayoral candidate, the Turkish Turkish Party announced well-known former national football player Gokhan Zhan as its candidate for the Greater Hatay Municipality. Zhan was a parliamentary candidate for the far-right Good Party in the general elections that took place last year, but he was not elected. He resigned from the Al-Khair Party last December.

TIP mayoral candidate Hatay Gökhanzan (right) and TIP president Erkan Baş (left). [Photo: X/Twitter: @GokhanZanResmi]

In an interview with Sozcu newspaper on February 11, a few days before announcing his candidacy, Zhan answered the question, “Will you run for mayor?” As follows:

I am present wherever the great Turkish nation, which has placed me in its hearts, wants to see me. Whether it is a matter of politics or not, as a son of this land I will not hesitate to sacrifice for my country. You know, there's a saying from centuries ago, “Let's all die if it's country,” and I'm someone who comes from such a culture.

Zahn said in the press release announcing his candidacy: “I am making two calls from here, the first to the leaders of the Republican People’s Party; It is unacceptable to re-nominate a person involved in earthquake crimes. My second call is addressed to Mr. Lutfi Savas; “Withdraw and let us unite around the Hatay alliance.”

At the same meeting, party spokeswoman and deputy Sira Kadgil answered the following question: “Will you withdraw your candidate if the CHP replaces Lutfi Savas?” By saying: “If our friends in the CHP do their part, we will do our part.”

The personal political responsibility that Lutfi Savas bears for the earthquake disaster cannot be denied. However, the CHP is not exempt from these crimes. While the government continues to abandon millions of people to their fate in Istanbul, one of the cities that will be hit hard by the expected earthquake in the Marmara Region, the “urban transformation” that the current CHP municipal administration has been implementing for the past four years and which was presented as a remedy against the earthquake has been a tool, Especially in Istanbul, to remove working class residents from the city center and build luxury housing for the rich.

The purpose of TIP is not to prosecute those responsible for the earthquake disaster. The Turkish party's entire election campaign was based on bargaining for seats with the Republican People's Party, the Kurdish nationalist People's Equality and Democracy Party, and several pseudo-leftist parties.

In Hatay, the Turkish Turkish Party received more than 20,000 votes in last year's parliamentary elections, reflecting the reaction after the earthquake. Aside from the three MPs elected from Istanbul, the party could only get enough votes to elect one MP from Hatay (the imprisoned Can Atalay, elected from Hatay, was undemocratically stripped of his parliamentary seat through an unconstitutional judicial maneuver by the government). The Turkish Turkish party now plans to use this anger to compete for municipal positions.

In Hatay provinces, the party entered into negotiations with other pseudo-leftist parties and groups for a joint candidate and a share of council seats, several of which were announced and failed. Mehmet Guzelyurt, who was presented as a mayoral candidate for Defne District, was a candidate of the Democratic Left Party in the previous local elections. The Democratic Society Party, a bourgeois party with no connection to the left other than its name, supported the People's Alliance led by President Erdogan in the presidential and parliamentary elections that took place last year.

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Media reported that many people were officials or candidates of various parties across the country, such as the CHP, the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), which broke away from the AKP, and Erdogan's de facto ally, the AKP. The Watan Party was running as a candidate for the TIP Party.

In an interview with TV100 last December, Turkish Turkish Party leader Erkan Baş said: “If the CHP presents us with right-wing candidates and ‘they will say: the elections can only be won with these names’, this is imposed on us.” Then we will nominate our candidates in elections all over Türkiye. Now, the TPK is practicing the unprincipled tactic of presenting its right-wing candidates as “leftists” instead of the CHP’s right-wing candidates.

The Turkish Turkish Party's policy in local elections is the product of its steady development to the right. Last year, party representatives did not participate in the vote on Finland's membership in NATO and did not vote “no” against it, and the membership was approved unanimously by Parliament.

In last year's presidential elections, the Turkish Turkish Party supported Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance, which is clearly more pro-imperialist than the People's Alliance led by Erdogan.

The Nation Alliance consists of the Republican People's Party, the far-right Good Party, which split from the Nationalist Movement Party; the Islamic Saada Party, from which the Justice and Development Party was born; the Future Party of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who served as prime minister under the AKP government and set its war policies throughout the Middle East; The Diva Party, led by Ali Babacan, who was one of the AKP's top economic officials and a trusted figure in financial capital, and finally the right-wing Democratic Party. In the second round, Kilicdaroglu also formed an anti-refugee and anti-Kurdish alliance with the fascist Victory Party.

The Turkish Turkish Party, which recently reached an agreement with the CHP on local elections, does not field candidates in places where the victory of this right-wing bourgeois party is decisive. They have put forward candidates that the CHP is sure to win or lose decisively.

The TRT and the pseudo-leftist parties allied with it are political mouthpieces for the upper middle class, not the working class. They participate in the elections with unprincipled and opportunistic alliances, and not with a program that seeks solutions to the global problems of the working class, such as the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the imperialism of the United States and NATO that is dragging humanity into a third world war, and the Corona virus. -19 pandemic and the risk of earthquakes. In the name of “the left,” they lie that capitalism can be improved and that social problems can be solved if they control local governments.

Reconstructing cities struck by the earthquake such as Hatay based on the needs of society, and reconstructing many cities threatened by natural disasters such as Istanbul with scientific planning and the highest level of durability and livability, and providing the right to safe housing, one of the most important basic rights of all people, must be of Among the main demands of a truly socialist party in the elections.

The emphasis on these demands must be accompanied by warning the working masses of the developing world war and the ongoing pandemic and their mass mobilization against these deadly dangers based on an international socialist programme.

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