'Wow, dear viewers...'

Aydın Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu has stirred up quite a mess.

She seemed so eager to bow to the government's blackmail that she took off at the first opportunity. Without a second thought, she threw her lot in with the AKP. She openly handed over the votes cast for the CHP, the will of the voters, and the honor of a city to the ruling power.

This is not just a "transfer" from one party to another; it is the collapse of an era, a mentality, and even a political understanding.

Immorality, lack of principles, lack of virtue, cowardice...

Whatever you call it, it has gone down in Turkey's political history as a "black mark."

The debates that began with Tayyip Erdoğan pinning the party badge on her actually date back much further. Various allegations had been circulating about Çerçioğlu for years. The book Kırık Topuklu Kirli Kontes (The Dirty Countess with Broken Heels) written by Ergun Poyraz, the critical articles penned by Mine Kırıkkanat...

All of this was within the public's knowledge. In other words, no one can say, "We didn't know."

Given this, how was she nominated again?

The statements by CHP Aydın Deputy Bülent Tezcan provide a partial answer to this question:

Çerçioğlu wanted to be the candidate for the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. When asked who would win Aydın, she gave the name of Kuşadası Mayor Ömer Günel. However, when İzmir chose a different candidate, Çerçioğlu became the candidate for Aydın again. During this process, her relationship with Günel soured; she even secretly supported the IYI Party candidate instead of her own party. Obstacles began to appear on billboards, in projects, and even at jointly operated beaches.

As Abidin Aydoğdu said after the final goal in that infamous match we lost 8-0 to England:

“Wow, dear viewers…”

We are in exactly that state of mind.

So many things happened before the local elections that we were unaware of.

CHP members are now turning somersaults to save the situation, but the truth cannot be hidden.

Whatever excuse they put forward, this is significant in terms of showing the point that politics in Turkey has reached.

Moreover, her cooperation with the whistleblower businessman Aziz İhsan Aktaş during the operations targeting the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality had created unrest within the party. But the party leadership continued to stand behind her.

Let us underline this sentence by Bülent Tezcan:

“No one should be kept in the same position for this long; that was the biggest mistake. Furthermore, when we heard the allegations, we should have conducted an investigation instead of just asking. If they were true, then we should have expelled her from the party.”

Now one might ask, who was stopping you?

Why did you turn a blind eye even though you knew all of this?

What benefit did you have from her sitting in that seat that you never objected?

She was not someone you didn't know; she didn't join the CHP yesterday.

She was elected as a deputy during Baykal's chairmanship and her star gradually rose during the Kılıçdaroğlu era. She had served as a party assembly member, a deputy, and a mayor.

Could it be that she had not gone through the party's training despite holding important positions within the CHP for so many years?

Or, had she either never truly adopted the CHP's principles, party program, and philosophy, or had she been acting well all this time, only to throw herself into the arms of the political Islamist mentality that literally hates the founding paradigm of the Republic the moment she found the opportunity?

Let us be clear.

The issue is not just the political immorality Çerçioğlu displayed today and her helplessness in the face of the government.

The roots of the issue go much deeper.

The CHP has been experiencing an ideological dissolution and drift for decades. It has left its principles and philosophy aside; unfortunately, the Six Arrows have remained only in words.

The party's management staff—including the current Chairman Özgür Özel—has increasingly drifted away from ideological clarity and consistency since the early 90s. Its political principles have become increasingly vague.

During the Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu era, this drift reached its peak; so to speak, only the name of the party remained.

The CHP has fallen into the hands of those who are not CHP members, has become shaky in the spiral of identity politics, and has taken on an ethnicist and sectarian structure.

Those who stood by its ideology, principles, and cause—that is, the real CHP members—have been marginalized.

The mentality of “Let the government remain with the AKP, the rent of the municipalities is enough for me” has dominated the Headquarters.

All of this is not limited to one person; it is a portrait of an era.

And Çerçioğlu is exactly the product of this era.

The person responsible for the disgrace is not just Çerçioğlu, but those who brought her to these positions, those who paved the way for her without ever questioning, and those who allowed her to sit in that seat even though they knew everything.

Let no one have any doubt that there are many politicians within the party who are products of this sickly era. Unless all of them are weeded out and the CHP truly returns to its founding settings, it cannot be an alternative for government.

Whatever else remains is of no use other than deceiving the people of my country.

Otherwise, we will wait for sixty years for the CHP to come to power.

Painful, but true...

I'm sorry, Leyla!