The CHP Congress, Leadership Cults, and Turkish Democracy
By the Editors (vol. 1, no. 6 of the Turkey Analyst)
The recent congress of the Republican People’s Party saw the re-election of the party’s increasingly authoritarian leader, Deniz Baykal. A fixture of the political scene who has stayed at the helm after every election he lost, Baykal epitomizes one of the most serious problems of Turkey’s democracy: the dictatorial rule of party chiefs, which prevents both the institutionalization of political parties and healthy policy discussion within them. For this problems to be addressed, both changes in legislation and in political culture will be needed.
Turkey’s Social Democrats Need to Rediscover the Working Class
By Halil Karaveli (vol. 7, no. 9 of the Turkey Analyst)
Many recognize that the Turkish social democrats, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), need to broaden their appeal. The CHP has long defined its mission as protecting the secular, bourgeois lifestyle. Lately, it has tried to appear more conservative and pro-Islamic. The party assumes that identity politics trumps class politics. However, the successes of the AKP show this assumption to be wrong. The CHP could emulate the example of the AKP and build a coalition of bourgeois and working class interests. A modern social democracy would speak both for bourgeois interests – freedom, individual liberties and a culture that values innovation – and cater to the interests of the working and poor classes. There is no reason to assume that social democracy can never rise again. But first, the CHP needs to rediscover the working class.
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