Has anyone been surprised with the comments of Ali Babacan, ex-minister of Erdogan’s party and founder of opposition Deva Party? I am not. He said, “Gulen Movement is a terror organization, and the state should always be vigilant against this Movement”.
Yet, I want to thank him for his openness and unmasking his draconian face. He made one thing obvious that he does not consider himself much different from Erdogan and gave the signal of sustaining Erdogan’s harsh and undemocratic practices against the innocent people who constitute the opposition if he gets elected in the near future.
Why is this vicious cycle going on in Turkey’s political sphere? Why are all politicians the same one way or another?
Ali Babacan was one of the highly qualified officials in past AKP governments in terms of his education, experience, and qualifications. He knows the outer world as well. It is impossible that he may not know what the EU, The US, NATO, England, and most of the states around the world think about the Gulen Movement and what really happened on the night of July 15, 2016.
With his baseless allegations and his unrealistic approach to the most important social and political crises of Turkey, everyone saw what lies hidden within Babacan. Most sadly, he has been deemed as one of the saviors who may beat Erdogan in the forthcoming election and turn Turkey back to the track of normalization!
Comparing the US politics with Turkey would not be realistic and even make a good example, but a comparison between two similar occurrences in the US and Turkish politics may be drawn here. Trump alleged ANTIFA in the US was a terror organization and Biden publicly opposed President Trump during a Presidential Debate by saying it was an “idea”, not a terror organization. Biden, the President-Elect, boldly made this comment when he was in the opposition against Trump, and now he has won the election. What happened in Turkey is all a different story, and all the opposition parties ridiculously use the same rhetoric with Erdogan to oppose him, only if the public buys it.
I think, Ali Babacan made a fatal mistake by playing to the status quo and showed everyone that he was not an opposition but a man of all seasons. I am not hopeless, but we will wait and see what other dark days may be in store for Turkey. With these new and old politicians cut from the same cloth, Turkey surely cannot progress an inch forward. Unfortunately, the expectation for the return of democracy to Turkey in a milieu of prosperity and sustainable development seems to take a longer time than what was expected.