It is clear that what happened on March 19 and in the following days will have lasting effects and consequences. It appears that the international political landscape, which is more in favor of the government than ever before, is seen as a “rare opportunity,” and that Mr. Erdoğan has been persuaded to follow an extremely aggressive roadmap. It is also possible to say that this is a move aiming to pave the way for the next generation of AK Party elites to take power. However, the picture that emerged after Mr. İmamoğlu and his A-team were arrested is quite far from making Mr. Erdoğan happy. Before March 19, the opposition’s expectation of success regarding the March 23 primary was that more than 1 million of the 1,750,000 CHP members would come to the polls. When the opportunity for non-member citizens to vote was also opened through “solidarity ballot boxes,” which is the brightest idea in recent CHP history, the resulting picture was: 1 million 653 thousand votes for Mr. İmamoğlu from party members and 13 million 211 thousand from the solidarity ballot boxes. That is a total of 14 million 864 thousand votes. This corresponds to almost 15 times the 1 million figure that was considered the criterion of success and the psychological threshold before March 19. Let me explain the magnitude of this number like this. In the 2024 local elections, 32% of the valid votes (46 million) cast across the country went to the primary on March 23 for Mr. İmamoğlu.
The widespread demonstrations of hundreds of thousands taking to the streets and squares in Istanbul after March 19, and the millions mobilized across the country, evoke memories of Gezi. Although it recalls Gezi in terms of the scale of social mobilization, I see significant differences that distinguish Saraçhane from Gezi.
- The cause of Saraçhane is an arrest that the public perception regards as a direct “political foul” by the government. In Gezi, the protests became politicized over a secondary issue such as the concreting of a green space.
- Saraçhane quickly unified the opposition by eliminating its political divisions. Right at the beginning of Gezi, the government was able to win over both its own base and a significant part of the opposing Turkish right by pointing to the participation of “terrorist organizations.” However, today there is no mass participation of the Dem supporters in Saraçhane because the government is in talks with Dem and İmralı in a new peace process. As for individual participation with Dem symbols, Saraçhane demonstrators are preventing it.
- A new and active protester profile has also emerged in Saraçhane. Young protestors who are Turkish nationalists. They are active in the field with the “Grey Wolf” hand sign, wolf-headed flags, and slogans from the first quarter of the last century. These are mostly the secular nationalist and angry children of the traditional Ülkücü masses who split from the MHP after 2016. Some of them are also students more inclined to Western-style nationalism. Their presence seems to provide some sort of self-control within the crowds against provocations by groups affiliated with terrorism.
- Turkiye, where the Saraçhane events started, has long been in economic crisis, and according to international indexes, it is a Turkiye of very unhappy people whose political atmosphere has become quite authoritarian. In 2013, Gezi started in a Turkiye whose economy was much better compared to today and where plurality of voices was incomparably higher than today. Today, the young population in Turkiye between the ages of 15 and 30 is around 20 million. More than 7 million of this are university students. Compared to Gezi, the number of young people pursuing higher education has increased by around 40%.
- Saraçhane began with the detention of a very popular political leader, İmamoğlu. And it quickly turned into a major unity with the prompt and unequivocal support of Mr. Yavaş — whose national popularity before March 19 was considerably higher than that of Mr. İmamoğlu — for Mr. İmamoğlu. However, the massive protests and the opposition will in Gezi lacked any leadership. This also caused the angry crowds to fail to concretize a political target for their energy. Fundamentally, they wanted Mr. Erdoğan to go, but there was no consensus on who was to come.
- Undoubtedly, the beginning of Saraçhane is İmamoğlu’s detention. But in terms of the demonstrations, we can consider the first step to be the Istanbul University students overcoming the police barricade. It is noteworthy that a generation accused of apathy took collective action as independently as possible from political and social hierarchies. Essentially, it was this generation’s rather bold political stance that served as the driving force for the CHP to overcome its relatively hesitant attitude on the first day. In other words, we witnessed a scene not of demonstrations organized by the CHP, but of broad masses powered by this generation pushing the CHP forward as well. They are driving not only the CHP but also everything else that could stand in the way before them. It was this driving energy that forced the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi), which had announced they would not participate by stating that the Dem supporters would also be attending Saraçhane, to back down within 24 hours and make their deputy leader give an enthusiastic speech on top of the bus.
Naturally, the common points between Gezi and Saraçhane are greater than their differences. However, it is possible that these differing aspects could carry Saraçhane to a more consequential position in terms of potential outcomes.
From our first ballot box in 1876 to this day, and especially since 1950, when the emergence of the national will at the ballot box reached a minimum standard, one of the main characteristics of Turkish society is a love for the ballot box. It is at such a level that it is on par with national traits like hospitality and warmth. We love the ballot box both as a symbol and for the power its result grants to the doer. In other words, as a tool to periodically remind those in power who the real boss is. Like in the old Turkish tradition of beys letting their people plunder their tent for one day a year, distributing their wealth. Turks like the principal-agent relationship. They also do not like their habits being disrupted. What is happening today is a counter-move from Turkish society, reminding who it is, against what it perceives as an interference with its right to choose. Essentially, Mr. Erdoğan knows very well who is making this counter-move. The one making the counter-move is the majority of Turkish society that took his epaulets from the hands of the crowds and carried them over his head for a quarter century. It would not be accurate to look at the hundreds of thousands in the squares and say “these are angry young people.” Nor would it be accurate to look at the nearly 15 million citizens who went to the primary ballot boxes and waited in line for hours to vote and say “these are angry opponents.” That would be to persistently ignore this general social discontent. Indeed, this would not be fitting for Mr. Erdoğan’s career, which has been filled with successes directly related to his ability to gauge the pulse of society. My well-intentioned advice is that in the end, Mr. Erdoğan, who is sensitive to the results of public opinion polls, should have independent institutions measure the public’s reaction. When he does so, he will see more clearly what will and will not happen in Turkiye.
