That's how Erdogan was firmly defeated

It has been a week since Ekrem Imamoglu took over the post of Istanbul's chairman in the repeat local elections, and the meaning of his convincing victory is more important than has been widely understood. Republican People's Party candidate [ The CHP has given hope not only to the hundreds of thousands of footballers who filled the streets with joy and millions of Turks, including me, who I saw from afar. Imamoglu's victory also provides the foundations of the cure for other countries suffering from the same political poison that is eating Turkish democracy from within: populism.

In his book What is populism?Politicalologist Jean-Werner Müller [Myler] has a simple but helpful definition of the phenomenon in question. Populism comes from the Latin word Populus, or 'people' he says, and populist leaders claim to re-represent the <x0c> people,” but on a crude condition: “Vec some of the people actually make up the people.” The rest is made up of corrupt and perverted, heartless elites, or traitors within “peoples” serving legitimate interests and dark schemes.

Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan [Erdogan] has perfected this populist torture in the past six years, following a milder and more pragmatic period that marked his early period in power. He has claimed he would make Turkey big and Muslim again after a century spent in secular cruelty. And since something so grandly achieved, all the power of this evil that governs the world the CIA, Mossad, George Soros, a lot of certain Zionists were cooking conspiracy to prevent him, and all Turkish patriots had to line up after him. Those who do not want to be listed are portrayed as weak, destabilising and betraying great new Turkey.

It is within the context of this narrative that Erdogan has called opposition coalition parties like “ethifaki,” or “The area of humiliation,” that according to him “were trying to frame our country.” His ministers repeatedly offended the opposition for going to bed with “terrorists.” Pro-Erdogan media have made countless news, story, opinion, and talk shows that attacked opposition parties for forming a “alance of treason” or a “coalition of crusaders. ”

The most dramatic, judicial, whose independence has been gradually eroded by the executive, adopted this narrative and acted through it. The term <x) Under such a party judiciary, anti-government protests that were supposed to be legal in a real democracy, such as those in Gezi Park in 2013, were criminalised as a tryntim-puc. [Civil society targeting and philanthropist Osman Cavala has been in prison since October 2017 for organising these protests, and he is only one of thousands of political prisoners in Turkish prisons. ]

The obvious scene in Turkey shows how far populism can go, especially in countries with weak institutions, with deep divisions, and an unliberal political culture. That may be why in French democracy that are similar to Turkey in these respects both Hungary and Poland, populism also made sad progress. In the United States, whose institutions remain strong, populism, luckily, remains only rhetorical. In other words, when Trump attacks a critical media like the people's <x0mic,” prosecutors do not begin to persecute that medium based on the president's words. However, it would be wise if the Americans were attentive to such things.

Here's a key point: Imamoglu overcame populism by winning some of the voters who once supported the Justice and Development Party. [ Erdogan's AKP.

Initially, with his personality, Imamoglu linked the old division of secularities with religiousists who have been the fundamental line in Turkish politics for more than a century of relatively relative to the division between conservatives and liberals in the United States. The secularists, who had power through most of the 20th century, have replaced conservatives with their nonliberal secularism, or French secularism, whose implications included the ban on ezanis for those praying and stopping the headscarves of women. And the CHP, the party that traditionally spread this regid secularism, has been the enemy of conservatives.

But, Imamoglu was not the typical CHP politician. For one thing, his last name means “son of imam”. He's a believer, and even quite serious: After the massacre at two mosques during March in Christchurch, New Zealand, he went to a mosque and read a whole chapter of the Koran aloud to honour the victims an extremely unusual act for a CHP politician. His wife doesn't wear a tissue, but his mother does. And when his counterCandidate's wife, Semiha Yildirim, was ridiculed by secularists for her appearance, it was his wife, Dilek Imamoglu, who objected to them saying, “in her, I see my mother, my sister.” Semiha then thanked Dilek.

Such messages helped Imamoglu break the image of a secularist grunting down at people of religion. This may be a lesson for American liberals and progressives, some of whom tend to look down just below much.

Imamoglu also proved wise by reading Erdogan's game, and which is polarisation, refusing to participate. First, he did not fall into the mistake of reflecting hateful propaganda issued against Erdogan on the other side. Instead of condemning the ruling party for high treason and threatening revenge once it takes power as some opposition in Turkey has long done, Imamoglu said he wanted to work with the government in harmony if he would become mayor of Istanbul. His electoral slogan was the message of hope “Anything that's gonna be okay.” Giving his victory speech, he told his supporters: “We will not offend anyone, we will not break anyone's heart. ”

With this “radical love”, as described by an article in the Atlantic newspaper, Imamoglu had it possible to win votes that would culturally go to Erdogan but that were tired of him.

There may be a lesson for American liberals: If they want to defeat Trump, the right strategy is not to use the same combat rhetoric seen at the extreme right, but to use that of fashion and civility. The right strategy is also to avoid going too far to the left in an internal race for ideological cleanliness, but quite the opposite, to get to the center.

What happens now in Turkey? Imamoglu had to prove that he can rule Istanbul well, consolidate his newly created popularity. We can expect that the central government will not be as friendly, as we are immediately seeing the AKP's efforts to capture power by elected mayors.

Meanwhile, we will have another challenge for Erdogan: Some of his most important people who built the AKP's success -- former President Abdullah Gul and former economic Czar Ali Babacan -- will create the new party, thus making the biggest rift in the conservative camp in the past two decades. It will be a party that will “priorityise economic reforms and seek repair of relations with the European Union and with NATO,”, according to a report by the Ahval news site. This is, to do another analogy with the United States, the version of the Turkey for those who are making the Never Trump campaign in order to act together.

It is possible that Erdogan will try to stop these new forces in Turkish politics as far as he can. But his efforts could be counterproductive, as was the case with the repeat elections in Istanbul, where he suffered serious losses. And with an increasingly declining economy, Erdogan could lose the next general election in 2023, if not earlier.

Thus, the Turkish experiment with extreme populism is possible to continue in the next few years, but not forever. And now we have a sense of how it can come to an end not through the populist poison of radical hatred, but more through radical love. /Periscope