The skin of our teeth

Even if you start understanding them you are not able to make out for which subjects they can be applicable. People who write these bills don’t seem to care if people understand them or not. And these people are known to be experts in their fields.

When a bill is debated in Parliament usually the person taking the floor tries to explain the meaning of it to the parliamentarians. The most popular issue these days is the problem of Turkish identitiy numbers on ID cards. According to Turkish legislation if an ID card holder doesn’t have his or hers ID number on the document he or she will not be able to vote in the 29 March municipal elections.

Actually the legislation was adopted in Parliament years ago but it is apparent that either citizens weren’t interested in it or it was not properly disseminated within the community. To put the problem in a nutshell, 4 million Turks don’t have ID numbers on their ID cards. We all know that Turks leave everything until the last moment. In other words we do nothing until it comes to the skin of our teeth.Â

To pay our taxes we wait until the final day. We don't start studying until the last day before examinations start. We admit this reality but I don’t accept that we are slow at doing everything. First of all the Grand National assembly should always be one step ahead of the public and all developments.

In other words Parliament should be prepared beforehand and have the ability to calculate the future. It shouldn’t wait for things to happen to bring a solution to them. The solution should be there if something in the future does happen.

To do this Parliament should be under close scrutiny and daily life should be followed attentively. There is another aspect to the problem. To say ,"What can we do? This is the law," cannot be an excuse.Â

It is our perfect right as citizens to go to the polls and vote. But even this cannot be done easily in Turkey. On one hand we form the law to enable 4 million people to use their right to vote and on the other hand to restrain these people from voting we try to manipulate the Constitution. Two weeks before the elections, and still ambiguity prevails under hailstorms of words.

I have never seen an election in Turkey which was not hotly debated ,was not branded as controversial, was not called manipulated. Maybe we like fighting over every issue. Even in the 21st century don’t we know how to solve a problem concerning citizens’ voting?

At the last minute nobody can accuse the other of negligence. During these final two weeks before elections people are crowding in census offices trying to get their ID numbers. We have to solve this problem as soon as we can. If we need to change the legislation let’s do it quickly and enter the election day taking a deep, comfortable breath.

Otherwise, if you say, "This is the law and I will apply it," you will be able to solve nothing. On the contrary you will bring upon yourself more problems which will immiediately emerge just after the elections. Nobody should be sursprised if the election results are canceled solely because of this problem. If we don’t want this to happen let’s act quickly and do something.