JDP congress and messages delivered by PM Erdoğan
The fourth ordinary congress of the ruling AKP convened in Ankara Arena Sports Hall on September 30th, with the theme of “Great nation, great power and vision for 2023,” giving reference to the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey.
Prime Minister Erdoğan who was elected as the chairman of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the last time until 2015, gave clear messages that he would keep his position as the most influential profile in the political arena and furthermore he would be running for presidency in the approaching 2014 elections.
Following the congress, many journalists and opinon leaders expressed views as to they were disappointed that Erdoğan had not covered many vital issues of top urgency such as relations and talks with terror organization and their leader at Imralı island on the way to working out a remedy to Kurdish issue.
In interviews he submitted on many national television channels just before the congress, the PM had caused expectations to climb that he would share his plans in much awaited event, regarding the roadmap of Turkey to end terror practiced by PKK,
However, the PM who did not prefer to go into details about such issues, preferred to deliver strong signals about his intention to remain the country’s leader until 2023, not to neglect to hint at his plans to jump to a revamped presidency.
Erdoğan often used the phrase “at the service of our nation by any means” referring to the time he would leave AKP chairmanship adding the creative wording “This is not a farewell. This is a rest, a break. This is a rest between the notes of the endless song. This is not a recess, this is a promise to keep and vow that we gave before. Even our recess is for our nation. We will be at the service of our nation by any means during our recess. We will do our best in every duty that our nation assigns to us with the conscience of our clause.”
Erdoğan stated that Turkey had a bright future and the country had the potential to be one of the greatest powers of its region and the world. He also added Turkey would continue to advance toward its 2023 targets and JDP would build Turkey’s future hand in hand with the nation without making it clear what the concrete actions to achieve said targets would be.
Referring to worries about his party trying to interfere with people’s way of living, he strictly emphasized that AKP did not and would never target to shape people’s lifestyles. On the contrary, he said they would protect everyone’s rights even if they got the support of the majority using the exact expression “Everybody’s lifestyle is under our assurance. We would protect the rights of the one percent even if we got the support of the 99 percent, let alone the 50 percent. We are against the domination of the majority over the minority. At the same time we are against the domination of the minority over the majority.”
The PM also referred to making of the new constitution and said the process would not stop even if one of the political parties was to leave the Parliament’s Constitution Conciliation Commission.
Based on the keypoints in his speech and reading between the lines several opinion leaders have revealed following interpretation of his speech;
Erdoğan has used this congress to point to his personal targets (such as presidency) rather than committing to much awaited plans and roadmap such as the continuation of Kurdish opening and in fact, he has strongly implied that he has set his eye on presidency and moreover presidential system – if he can manage to accomplish it certainly as it seems a remote possibility at the moment.
On the other hand, President Gül who is known to be Erdoğan’s “buddy” on the long road to accomplishing their common mission has recently delivered some messages showing he is not in full accord with the PM on some issues such as imprisonment of elected deputies for excessively long periods of time without being sentenced whereas they should be present in the parliament to carry out the duty assigned by the vote owners.
One other issue that was criticized by Gül was the strange practice to deny accreditation to some jounalists disliked by the JDP to punish them as some would word it. To be even more awkward this practice was verified and defended by some top people in the party. The President said this was not a favorable practice in a country where democracy is supposed to be prevailing
To recap, one thing was clear at the end of the congress; Erdoğan will be here to stay as long as he wishes to do so and his health situation allows him to. That is unless a new leader and movement comes out of nowhere to move and influence crowds again – supported by a political party certainly. On the other hand anybody who would hope to see a clash between Erdoğan and Gül, top 2 figures in the JDP movement is certainly bound to be badly disappointed as these two figures would in any case refrain from such a confrontation to make rivals happy and would find a way to work out any conflict (of interests even) on the way to realizing “the mission.”
02.10.2012
Editor, BTT
