...and Gökçek is the candidate!

Was there shock among the supporters of the party who gathered despite freezing cold of Ankara in front of the AKP headquarters? NoÉ More or less it was certain, since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a ten-minute closed-door meeting with the incumbent clamorous mayor of Ankara at the VIP lounge of the Esenboğa Airport on the morning of New Year’s Eve, before the premier departed for the first leg of his Middle East shuttle diplomacy, said to have aimed at achieving a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas administration of the Gaza strip. It was apparent from the wide smile on the face of Gökçek afterwards that the ten-minute meeting that the premier had told him "Don’t worry Melih, you will be again our man in Ankara!"

Thus, what the premier did was nothing more than declaring publicly what was known already. The premier made his calculations and though he might not be happy with the incumbent Gökçek, he wanted to remain the "winner" in Ankara and therefore continue with the clamorous incumbent. Many people will now say the premier just could not risk losing the Ankara mayoral seat and felt compelled to nominate Gökçek for Ankara for a fourth time Ğ such a thing has never ever happened in Turkey. Why should he risk the Ankara seat anyhow? Right, including this writer there is a sizeable minority in Ankara who have been expressing for a long time that they believed Ankara deserved as a mayor a less clamorous, less populist but more appealing, environmentalist and of course ethically and morally correct personality Ğ this does not mean Gökçek is not because he was not so far sentenced of favoritism, bribery, misuse of office, using municipal power to advance family interests and such, though there have been widespread "unverified" speculations against him.

Furthermore, people might love to speculate that Erdoğan was compelled to nominate Gökçek because he was scared of the possibility that Gökçek would run for mayor as an independent candidate should the AKP did not nominate him and thus he would divide the vote and perhaps such a development would lead to election of social democratic Murat Karayalçin as the mayor of Ankara. Why are people in politics? Is not "winning" the aim? Perhaps either incumbent Altındağ Mayor Veysel Tiryaki or Keçiören Mayor Turgut Oltınok would be "more welcome" to the premier as candidate of his party for the seat of Ankara mayor, but why should he take a risk if three separate public opinion polls showed that Ğ thanks to massive coal and foodstuff package donations continuing since last summer Ğ Gökçek was in the lead with almost eight percentage points and unless something drastic happens his victory is almost a foregone conclusion?

Culture of allegiance
It must be up to the Ankara residents to decide what is important for them, and what they expect from their mayor. If a few packs of free coal, some sacks of free rice, a few liters of free cooking oil are far more important than the 80-year-old or even older chestnut tree on the Protocol Highway, why should we be bothered with who becomes the Ankara mayor?

What did the premier say yesterday? He said the AKP government and its municipalities were making coal and foodstuff donations because of their commitment to the social state. "We are not making these donations only during election times; we are doing these out of our commitment to social state."

That is what the premier and his men do not understand. No one is against state and municipal support for the needy but such assistance should be limited and should not lead to nourishing a beggar culture in the society. If a state wants to be a social state it must rather generate jobs and make sure that people work, earn and lead a respectable living rather than converting masses into beggars.

But, of course if the aim is to develop a culture of allegiance rather than a free and democratic society of course there is need to nourish an allegiance society, an allegiance media and allegiance politiciansÉ