Give your candidate a break, Mr Baykal
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mart 24, 2009 00:00
All of us, at one time or another, have been to a lecture to hear the keynote speaker only to be frustrated with the person doing the introduction takes up more time than the guest of honor. We’ve all been to the wedding reception, awaiting a few words from the bridegroom, when his friend from military service or high school grabs the microphone and puts us all to sleep.
Which is how we feel about Deniz Baykal, the leader of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP. On Sunday, thousands of CHP loyalists turned up at a rally to hear the party’s mayoral candidate, parliamentarian Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, explain his program for the city. There were four other rallies around the city held by the spectrum of parties and politicians contesting the mayoralty.
We would note that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has done a good job of sharing the stage with candidates running on his ticket. He did so again Sunday, appearing with the AKP’s incumbent, Kadir Topbaş, but letting Topbaş defend his record and map his hopes for the future.
But Baykal played the role of the bore at the wedding reception. He essentially stole the attention of the party faithful from a candidate they had come to hear. And Kılıçdaroğlu has plenty to say. He is an articulate and reasoned voice who has distinguished himself on the issue of fighting corruption in Turkey. But Baykal monopolized the limelight.
This is nothing new, of course. The hyper-centralization of Turkey’s administration is a serious impediment to development. Mayoral candidates should not be handpicked, as they are today, by the central party leadership. Local problems of infrastructure, transportation, housing and development should not be the sole province and domain of the central government. The current structure, institutionalizing a fear of regional initiative and autonomy, stunts the growth and emergence of durable and sustainable solutions to the many very local challenges in a large, populous and complex country.
If Baykal’s act of show-stealing reflects the problem, so does the AKP justice minister’s well-reported comment some weeks back to the effect that local voters who support anyone not in the ruling party will "waste" their votes as their cities will not be able to secure financing from the central government.
Local elections are thus only proxy referenda on national issues. The country and democracy suffer as a result. These are complex issues. But they deserve to be part of the discussion on constitutional reform that will follow this local election. This should be the last local election that is so effectively "nationalized." And it should be the last local election where a party leader like Baykal pushes a local candidate for mayor off stage at his own rally.
We would note that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has done a good job of sharing the stage with candidates running on his ticket. He did so again Sunday, appearing with the AKP’s incumbent, Kadir Topbaş, but letting Topbaş defend his record and map his hopes for the future.
But Baykal played the role of the bore at the wedding reception. He essentially stole the attention of the party faithful from a candidate they had come to hear. And Kılıçdaroğlu has plenty to say. He is an articulate and reasoned voice who has distinguished himself on the issue of fighting corruption in Turkey. But Baykal monopolized the limelight.
This is nothing new, of course. The hyper-centralization of Turkey’s administration is a serious impediment to development. Mayoral candidates should not be handpicked, as they are today, by the central party leadership. Local problems of infrastructure, transportation, housing and development should not be the sole province and domain of the central government. The current structure, institutionalizing a fear of regional initiative and autonomy, stunts the growth and emergence of durable and sustainable solutions to the many very local challenges in a large, populous and complex country.
If Baykal’s act of show-stealing reflects the problem, so does the AKP justice minister’s well-reported comment some weeks back to the effect that local voters who support anyone not in the ruling party will "waste" their votes as their cities will not be able to secure financing from the central government.
Local elections are thus only proxy referenda on national issues. The country and democracy suffer as a result. These are complex issues. But they deserve to be part of the discussion on constitutional reform that will follow this local election. This should be the last local election that is so effectively "nationalized." And it should be the last local election where a party leader like Baykal pushes a local candidate for mayor off stage at his own rally.