OPINION. Does the same risk Iohannis’ alliance? Although the citizens seemed resigned and the campaign was dull, the defeat of Erdogan’s party in Turkey was born out of a sense of injustice

Like an unannounced volcano, the electorate erupted, and instead of the flat, “fore-known” results, there was effervescence in Turkey. Citizens went to vote “as in local elections with an atmosphere of general elections”, as the Istanbul press describes them, also surprised. Among the explanations: the party in power was superior, sufficient and appointed weak candidates to the main town halls, lacking the ability to mobilize the electorate. Sounds familiar?

A journalist of Romanian origin who lives in Turkey and collaborates with the “Cumhuriyet” newspaper, Violeta Stratan İlbasmış described in the analysis site Contributors what happened in the last few days in Turkey.

If you superimpose the events in Turkey, detailed by the journalist, with the pre-election situation in Romania, you can ask yourself whether or not it is a predictor for what will follow in our country.

A boring election race. But the endless “fight miming” annoys

“This election campaign was one of the most boring campaigns I’ve had the opportunity to watch since I’ve been in this country,” says the journalist.

“But the apathy, indifference and sense of hopelessness that we observed among Turks before these elections are in total opposition to the state of joy, hope and bliss after the elections,” notes Violeta Stratan İlbasmış. Perceived as an invincible colossus, Erdogan’s AKP party lost.

It is the first time since the AKP’s appearance on the Turkish political scene that the CHP (social democratic opposition) has managed to come out on top nationally.

People reject the offshoring of their country, regardless of whether it is Turkey or Romania

From this point of view, also in Romania there are signals in opinion polls that people see the PSD and PNL coalition as an offshoring of politics and the state. This can be felt, at the level of the citizen, as an attempt to take power for an indefinite period by two parties-corporations. The coalition claims a monopoly, but people feel that the real owners are unknown and impossible to hold accountable.

“When you have a political cartel, like PSD-PNL, you automatically have anti-cartel reactions. And young people go to the anti-system options”, Vlad Adamescu, a young civic activist, summarized this impulse. The survey of the organization where Adamescu is a member aroused wide debates through its conclusions: at the level of the entire country, among young people aged 18-30, AUR is preferred, among all parties.

“The name of the real opposition is poverty!”

Without pretending to be exhaustive, the journalist from Turkey lists some of the reasons she considers important in the genesis of the big surprise since the elections:

“The serious economic crisis in which Turkey was mentioned is the most important reason that influenced the results of these elections. Since 2018, Turkey has been in an unprecedented economic crisis with a galloping inflation rate. For a comparison, in 2010 the inflation rate in Turkey was 6.4 percent, and in 2023 it reached 64.8 percent.”

Already affected segments of society reacted harshly. “The name of the real opposition is poverty!”, wrote one of the most famous Turkish journalists, Banu Avar, quoted in the Contributors article.

We abandon many of our fellow citizens

And in the economic field, the similarity with the situation in Romania is significant. This is even if the macro figures are good. “Let’s tell the people who are screaming that they are in trouble and that they can’t live worse than that, that in the last 8 years we have all lived far beyond our means”, said in November 2023 the chief economist of the National Bank, Valentin Lazea. But just as we are all dead in the long run, it is equally true that no one lives macroeconomically.

Romania still has a huge rate, the highest in Europe, of citizens left behind in terms of living standards.

In addition, “relative deprivation” has appeared all over the world. It involves frustration with the way you think others live, not a realistic comparison with you a few years ago. It’s not OK, but “relative deprivation” is encouraged by social media and dominates much of the public imagination.

Deleted, powerless candidates

Another observation of the journalist of Romanian origin from Turkey is related to the deleted profile of the Power candidates in the local elections. “The AKP candidates in Turkey’s big cities were not influential, powerful and charismatic political figures,” she notes.

Regarding the internal and political strength of the candidate, if we look at the election of the PSD-PNL coalition for the Bucharest City Hall, it mirrors the situation in Turkey on the bank of Dâmbovița.

Erdogan and Iohannis, two Emperors

And there is something else, deeply human. Both the ruling party in Turkey and the ruling coalition in Romania are dominated by the father figures of presidents Erdogan and Iohannis. Both have been repeatedly criticized for the lavish style of maintaining their own condition as politicians: expensive travel, the Emperor’s palace, public money spent without number. Of course, there are many differences. In Romania, Opposition representatives and journalists are not jailed overnight, on a discretionary basis.

“What did I do, asks the leader? He abused people’s patience, that’s what he did”

For a while, for a long time, this was not seen in the vote. Only the dissatisfaction and the feeling of being defied accumulates somewhere. As in these lines, written by the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who traveled the world and reported from dozens of revolutions:

“Power is what causes the revolution. Of course, I don’t want to. But the lifestyle, the way of government eventually become a challenge. It appears when the feeling of impunity is strengthened among elite people, the belief that they will not be punished. Everything is allowed to us, we can do anything. It is an illusion, but not devoid of rational bases”.

“Indeed, for a while, scandal after scandal, abuse after abuse, remain without trace. The people are silent, patient and cautious. He’s afraid, he doesn’t feel his powers yet. But at the same time, he makes a thorough calculation of the injustices and, at some point, he reaches the balance sheet”.

“The choice of this moment in the outbreaks is the greatest enigma of history. Why did this happen then and not some other time? Why was the moment hastened by this event and not by another? Only yesterday the power had allowed itself greater excesses and yet no one had reacted”.

In a way, this happened in Turkey.

“What did I do, the leader asks in surprise, that like that, as if all of a sudden, as if they went crazy? He abused people’s patience, that’s what he did.”