Reports have it that Turkey's only mainstream leftist party the Republican People's Party (CHP) is once again considering backing someone with perfect conservative credentials for president, which many see as a symptom of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Turkish left. In 2014, the CHP formed an alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to field Ekmelettin İhsanoğlu, an academic with a special focus on the history of Turkish and Islamic science who also served as the general secretary of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
This time around, the CHP is seeking to reach a deal with the far-right Good Party (İP) and the Islamist conservative Felicity Party (SP) as the leftist front in Turkey. Rumors have it that discussions are mainly centered on former President Abdullah Gül and İlhan Kesici, a CHP member with deep roots in center-right politics. According to Şahin Mengü, a former CHP deputy and a renowned figure within the party, CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's inconsistency risks dragging the party into failure with a second İhsanoğlu case. Ironically, İhsanoğlu said last week that he would be supporting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for re-election this summer.
"The CHP needs to announce its own candidate. The CHP is the founder of this country and should choose a president candidate that suits it. But unfortunately we cannot do it. The reason is the party's ruler Kılıçdaroğlu's inconsistency and his conflict with CHP values," Mengü said.
Mengü underlined that backing Gül would make the CHP look like a surrender.
"There may be alliances, but this alliance does not mean that the CHP surrenders to somebody. The CHP here is surrendering, and this is wrong. I do not want to see a second İhsanoğlu case. Abdullah Gül is a second İhsanoğlu case," Mengü said.
Regarding the issue, Mustafa Altunoğlu, a political science academic at the Eskişehir Anadolu University, said that a left-wing CHP has no chance in the presidential elections with a left candidate because of the sociological background of Turkey. Referring to Gül's alleged candidacy, Altunoğlu said that in any case the CHP will need allies from the right.
"The left has a considerable distance from Turkey's sociology. Even though the distance was covered between 1965 and 1980, since 1980, the left drew away from Turkey's sociology day by day, instead of catching up to it. Of course the CHP is also affected by this distance, or as a party that sees itself as a left party," Altunoğlu said.
Altunoğlu added that the difficulty to convince people to vote for a left candidate in the context of Turkey persuaded the CHP to choose a candidate with a right-wing tendency. On the other hand, Kılıçdaroğlu's open-to-discussion leadership is damaging the party's image in the public eye. Altunoğlu said that Kılıçdaroğlu is a confusing figure as to where the party is appealing.
Indeed, the CHP fails to find its rhythm when it comes to deciding on being a leftist or central, conservative party. "We are talking about a party that still cannot determine where to stand. In the past years, they focused on the voters of the conservatives and the Kurds. Now they are in their quest to become a party with a little more 'left-wing' activity," he said.
The CHP is also a member of the Socialist International, the global organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties.
Additionally, the CHP's intra-party problems and the rising pressure from the dissident Muharrem İnce, a Yalova deputy for the CHP, leads to further turmoil within the CHP.
"Kılıçdaroğlu knows that it will be very difficult for him to continue to lead the CHP presidency if he is a candidate in the presidential elections. Because İnce already aspires to the seat, we can find an answer to why the candidate is not Kılıçdaroğlu," Altunoğlu said.
CHP intraparty dissidents slammed Kılıçdaroğlu for his one-man rule in
the CHP, which was especially showcased at the party's bylaws convention in March. Deputies criticized the party's administration for failing to listen to the requests and suggestions of the whole party in preparing the bylaws draft. İnce was the front-runner dissident against Kılıçdaroğlu. At the party's 36th general congress in February, Kılıçdaroğlu was re-elected with a total of 790 votes, while the rival candidate, İnce, received 447 votes. While the CHP stumbles in finding a leftist candidate that would represent the values of its base, the situation for other left parties in Turkey is no different.Minor left parties such as the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), the Communist Party (KP), the People's Liberation Party (HKP) and the Democratic Left Party (DSP) still stay silent regarding a presidential candidate.
In fact, the left parties have barely any presence in the country as citizens head to the ballot boxes. In the last general elections on Nov. 1, 2015, the DSP garnered only 0.07 percent of the vote, while HKP was the most voted among the minor left parties with 0.18 of the vote. The KP's vote was 0.11 percent and the other parties were below the 0.1 percent threshold.
The decades-long crisis for the left front is indeed a case for political science. An article by Hüseyin Etil published in Lacivert Magazine in January explains that Turkey's left front's problem depends on its discourse as a petite bourgeoisie (small bourgeoisie), who is a middle-class person stuck in the middle of being an elite person and a villager.
