The weapon of victimhood

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, was sentenced to 10 months in prison by the Diyarbakır No. 3 State Security Court on December 6, 1997, under articles 312/2 and 59 of the now-abolished Turkish Penal Code, on the grounds that he incited the public to hatred and hostility due to a poem he recited at a rally in Siirt.

Once this sentence was upheld by the Court of Cassation, he served 4 months in the Kırklareli Pınarhisar prison.

Since Article 11, paragraph (f), clause 3 of the Parliamentary Election Law No. 2839 stated that those convicted under Article 312, paragraph 2 of the Turkish Penal Code could not be elected as members of parliament, the Supreme Election Council ruled that he could not be a parliamentary candidate in the November 3, 2002, general elections.

In those elections, the AKP received 34.3 percent of the vote and came to power alone with 363 deputies.

After the government was formed following the election, with the support of the CHP and Deniz Baykal, Article 15 of Law No. 4778 dated January 2, 2003, removed the condition of conviction under Article 312/2 of the Turkish Penal Code from the list of convictions that prevent one from being elected as a member of parliament, as stated in Article 11/f-3 of the Parliamentary Election Law No. 2839.

With the obstacle to his election as a member of parliament removed, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won the parliamentary by-election in Siirt, entered Parliament, and took over the Prime Ministry from Abdullah Gül to begin his term.

The Turkish nation, which is sensitive about empathizing with victims (those who have been treated unfairly), rallied behind the AKP in the November 3, 2002, elections.

Behind the AKP's election victory lay the victimhood that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was said to have experienced.

As is known, parties that play the victim generally avoid taking responsibility and, instead of involving themselves in the problem, point to others as targets.

Following its first election experience, the AKP government realized what a weapon victimhood could be and used this weapon to the fullest during its 22 years in power.

In this context, through the rhetoric of victimhood, all state institutions, primarily the military and the judiciary, were redesigned as the AKP government desired.

Faults were always blamed on others; internal and external enemies were held responsible for all the negatives in Turkey.

A criminal case was filed against Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP's Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, on the grounds that he insulted members of the Supreme Election Council after he said, “Those who canceled the election on March 31 are fools,” in response to Süleyman Soylu, who had called him a “fool.”

Ekrem İmamoğlu was sentenced to 2 years and 7 months in prison by the Istanbul Anadolu 7th Criminal Court of First Instance, and in accordance with Article 53 of the Turkish Penal Code, he became subject to a political ban for the duration of the prison sentence.

The result of the case, which is still in the appellate stage, has not yet been finalized.

Thus, history has repeated itself, and the weapon of victimhood has passed into the hands of Ekrem İmamoğlu and, consequently, the CHP.

The great economic hardship within the failure of the AKP government, alongside the administrative success of CHP-run municipalities and Ekrem İmamoğlu's victimhood, caused the public to cluster around the CHP in the March 31, 2024, elections.

Despite the warnings of some AKP politicians, the AKP is determined to hand the weapon of victimhood to its rival.

We will see the results of this in the coming days.

We hope that the CHP does not use this weapon recklessly and does not hide behind the rhetoric of victimhood regarding its mistakes and the fulfillment of its responsibilities.