If 2 million people give 1000 liras

The CHP administration, which has been subjected to a judicial coup, says they have plans B and C, but their top priority for some time seems to be how to take back the CHP. Yet, a much larger and more vital question is knocking at the door:

What if they lose the right to enter the election while trying to save the CHP?

Let me ask more clearly. If you are facing a political operation that does not recognize the Constitution, does not recognize the laws, and effectively ignores the authority of the YSK (Supreme Election Council), can you still act as if there is a normal legal order? After trying all legal avenues, could you be too late in activating plans B and C?

The power you are facing has already exhausted the law. The decision of absolute nullity is contrary to the constitution and all relevant laws... They have torn your heart out by ignoring the constitution and the laws. Is it not clear that objections such as “We have collected enough signatures according to the bylaws, hold a convention. There are bylaws. You cannot discipline deputies through the MYK (Central Executive Board)” will not yield results? The man has trampled over the constitution, and you are pointing to a bylaw article. In this climate of lawlessness, pointing to a bylaw article is like reminding an executioner of the law.

The issue has long since ceased to be a CHP issue. The issue is now a matter of democracy; it is a matter of the people's right to vote and be elected being taken away. It is an operation to prevent the leaders and candidates that the people have embraced and trusted from entering the elections in advance. The issue is the paralysis of Turkey's leading party by the judiciary, putting it into a vegetative state. And most importantly, it is an operation to make people forget the real agenda of the country: the fire in the kitchen, deep poverty, and the extravagance of those in power!

The main goal of the government here is not to sociologically capture the CHP base or anything like that. They can legally paralyze the institutional structure of the CHP. You might supposedly take back the CHP from the inside; but you might find that in that turmoil, because the convention could not be held on time, the right to enter the election is gone!

Therefore, the first question that should be asked today is not the question of "How will we take back the CHP?" The real question is, "How will we get the Republican will into the election?"

For this reason, it is no longer a choice but a necessity for the Özgür Özel administration to urgently activate a Plan B. The legal struggle proceeds on a separate track, but it should not be the primary agenda. If necessary, a new party should be established, or they should gather under the umbrella of a party that has already qualified to enter the election.

What is being discussed here is not giving up on the CHP and its deep-rooted legacy. Today, the CHP has approximately two million members. A new party can be established with 100 thousand of them. The remaining 1 million 900 thousand members remain in the CHP. They take their party back from the occupiers at the first democratic convention. In this process, those 1 million 900 thousand members work shoulder to shoulder with the newly established party in the field, with an organic bond. The journey continues without putting the right to vote at risk.

FOR A STRONG NEW RESTRUCTURING

Here, there is a proposal by my friend Kadri Atabaş from the pre-1980 CHP Youth Branches MYK that should be taken into account. (He is also the architect of the occupied Headquarters building.) As a prerequisite for the establishment of the new party, to launch a major campaign where 2 million citizens will donate 1000 liras each within a transparent accounting structure open to the whole society...

This means a budget of 2 billion liras in one go. According to Kadri Atabaş, just as 15 million signatures were collected for Ekrem İmamoğlu, this target of 2 million people is not a dream. Such an organic and transparent capital structure both opens a huge space for the movement and ensures that the millions who protect the Republic are effectively involved in the process. One of the greatest democratic solidarity movements in Turkish political history could emerge.

THE REAL AGENDA

The judicial coup against the CHP and the CHP's struggle to take back the party have pushed Turkey's real agenda into the background. 80 percent of the population is below the poverty line. While annual food inflation is 2.8 percent in Russia, which is at war, and 5 percent in Mexico, where drug cartels are causing internal turmoil, annual food inflation in Turkey is 35 percent according to TUIK... There is a fire in the kitchen. Young people have no hope for the future. Unemployment is a major problem. The extravagance of the government and its cronies is off the agenda...

Today, the tax system is not being discussed in Turkey. People pay taxes, but the most basic rights and the most basic state duties, such as education and health, are left to the wild wheels of the market. It is clearly stated that the public is being harmed by presenting documents in the tenders given to contractor groups known as the Gang of Five. None of these, the Treasury-guaranteed tenders, the capitulations handed over to miners, are being talked about. A new perception operation is being carried out every day over corruption allegations against opposition municipalities. Kılıçdaroğlu, who once shouted "Gang of Five" and asked "Where is the 128 billion dollars" by waving documents in the parliament and at rallies, has forgotten those allegations and is playing a leading role in the government's perception operation.

THE SURVIVAL OF TURKEY

The issue is not just about the CHP and democracy. The most vital issue that is being overlooked and lost in this noise is: the survival of the Republic of Turkey. It is no coincidence that US Ambassador Tom Barrack, who acts like a colonial governor, proposes a "merciful monarchy" and an "Ottoman Millet system" for Turkey instead of the republican regime. Elements of the People's Alliance were already voicing this dangerous thesis before. Finally, hearing "Ottoman geography" references from the mouth of Kılıçdaroğlu, who was brought down by a legal coup at the head of the CHP, is clear proof that they are all meeting at the same center for the same project.

The nation-state and the secular republican structure are under a total threat of liquidation. No one should underestimate the possibility that the People's Alliance and the DEM Party, with new support they will recruit from outside, will reach the power to change the constitution and dilute the founding principles without even needing a referendum.

Look, the other day there was a meeting at the Çırağan Palace under the title of the D-8 Summit. 11th President Abdullah Gül, Future Party Chairman Ahmet Davutoğlu, DEVA Party Chairman Ali Babacan, New Welfare Party Chairman Fatih Erbakan, and Felicity Party Chairman Mahmut Arıkan came together. Although this group defines themselves as "conservative," it is known to everyone that they come from the Political Islam tradition...

That is exactly why the ideological backbone of that new structure, which will rise under the leadership of Özgür Özel, must not bend in the slightest and must be clear. All honest patriotic cadres who sincerely embrace Atatürk's principles, secularism, and the founding values of the Republic, and who have been excluded until today, should be invited to this new formation.

Saving the CHP's sign and building is of course important, but it is not the top priority today. The first and non-postponable priority is to ensure that the Republican, secular, and pro-unitary state opposition remains standing tall as the strongest alternative to the government in these lands and enters the election without any shortcomings.