 On May 14th, we're going to see general elections being held in Turkey for the post of president and for parliament. Elections which are among the most significant in the world. Turkey is an important power. The positions it takes are crucial for not only West Asia, but for the entire world. And this election is particularly interesting as it has been very close. President Rajab Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power in various ways since 2003, facing a very strong challenge. It's very unclear as of now what will happen, polls saying, polls giving different kinds of results. But today we wanted to look at not only Erdogan's record, the kind of challenge he's facing in the elections, but also the perspective of left and progressive forces in Turkey as well, who played a long, who have had many struggles, who played a vital role in the country's politics. We're joined by Anil from the Turkish Communist Party from its Central Committee. Thank you so much for speaking to us. So, I wanted to start with the immediate issue that of the general elections. Many people are observers, the media calling it maybe the closest in recent times. And like I said, the polling indicates the leading candidates neck to neck. But maybe could you first take us through why this election is so tight, so to speak, and why has Erdogan become so unpopular? Why is it so close? It's complicated because Erdogan and the alliance of his party facing an interesting dilemma. You can call it a challenge, of course, but I think we can find an answer to your question if you don't dive into this dilemma. Because the election is the closest one today, as you said. But we must know that Erdogan is kind of a personification of this dilemma. So I want to explain a little bit more about this dilemma. On the one hand, Erdogan suffered a series of defeats in the past. I'll get to that moment in a moment. But what I mean by the defeat is in both sense, in world view and in support of Turkish society. In other words, he seemed lost in terms of his legitimacy, actually. We must know that he is a politician of Islamist school, so-called national vision movement in our country. And he trains as a fundamentalist and sworn anti-communist. He commonly regarded as liberal Islamist in the past, or put it differently, a moderate Islamist. But his political school has never changed. He has always been a counter-revolutionist, a fundamentalist, and an enemy of the Turkish republican-licensed cult. So his and his party's main objective was to transform Turkey using their Islamist agenda. They knew that they couldn't do that if they do not change their costume or clothes. Yes, they used liberalism as a weapon. To earn trust of the big bosses of the Turkish capitalism, the monopolies. But the market ideology, liberalism, privatization, corporate world view were always their testament, as it were. So eventually they hit the wall in the past. I think we can determine three major turning points in here, why they hit the wall. First, in Syria. So we stole a huge war, maybe the world war in Syria. But in Syria, they promised so much for their Islamist, Ottomanist, imperial hunger. But they failed at least in the most part. The Eurotomanist project was one of the main cores of the counter-revolutionist agenda of the Euron. And the failure backlash is a legitimacy problem. So this was the first reason. And the second one, Turkish people were stubborn. We pour into the streets in the so-called June days. And it was 2013, 10 years before. And it was one of the most important events in the Turkish history. So political left made its presence on the streets back then. And the most important squares of the cities, for example, Istanbul, Ankara, Adana, Izmir, and Republican, Lysist, anti-imperialist cults were alive on those crowds. In the end, June days cracked the second pillar of the Erdogan's Islamist agenda. So there is one more. And the third one was the latest earthquake disaster. It was a terrible disaster. But yeah, it's probably the most tragic and devastating event in the Turkish history, I should say. Maybe a massacre to put it other words. And it meant a fatal, legitimate crisis in the government. And in the state also. They emptied their conservatism using their own hands. People were awakened. Turkish people, even who support Erdogan before, or his alliance, which consists of nationalists and Islamists, suddenly and gradually realized that they lost all the credits in terms of ethics, faith and even modesty in politics, etc. So Erdogan was naked back then on those days, as he and his party is all about money, profit, rent and show business. So this could have been the Erdogan's real closest moment until this moment. But in fact, he could have been a political corpse, as I can say as it were. But here is the dilemma. So every time he lost his legitimacy, every time he lost his confidence or confidence of his own supporters, the political system come to the aid of him. The two-aligned system, I mean, or in practice two-party system, had him so much. So he somehow find a way and use the system's soft spots to replenish his legitimacy. I mean, he uses politics to cover his failed ideology in a way. It's a phenomenon. And simply because of this mechanism of Turkish politics, this dilemma we are still talking about, as it were one man and or his voting rate or his or this election's uncertainty, this is the dilemma we are facing. And back to the question, because of this absurdity, and for a long time, Erdogan's challenge also becomes our challenge. That's the thing we're facing today, basically. That's a very interesting way you put it, because you talked about the various aspects that have really hit him, but also why he seems to come back every time. But I think this time also for me, people outside, it's been an interesting occasion also and interesting in bad ways as well, because the sheer extent of the economic crisis in Turkey. We've been reading reports of the massive inflation that people are facing, the currency losing value, all this happened last year, of course. We have heard workers take to the streets, protests taking place on the issue of wages. And finally, Erdogan responding, the government responding by increasing wages at the last moment, minimum wages, I believe, at the very last moment. But could you maybe take us to the extent of the economic crisis and also the kind of policies you mentioned, the market policies, the neoliberalism as they say. But could you maybe take us a bit in depth into those policies which have led to this crisis? Yeah, first of all, nothing starts before the election, I must say. If you want to understand economic crisis in Turkey, we definitely look at the beginning of all. I think that's necessary to understand what's going to happen after the election. Beginning with the time crisis, technically speaking, Turkish economy is not facing a real breakdown, in technically speaking. Capitalist machinery, economic order is running well. Both AKP, Erdogan, and the opposition are not going to change any structural policies of the Turkish economy. I mean, Turkish capitalism is benefiting from being close to the Europe. It's ties to the European capital and being a breach over Russia, Asia and Africa. The Turkish industries developed in close relation to the European markets. Think that as an export hub or logistic hub of this region. This goes as planned before, nothing's changed and changing. But Turkish economy is not like German economy, for example. Its ability to absorb shocks, fluctuations, is not comparable to so-called great economies or central imperatives. Also, Turkish economy is in the middle of a bottleneck in terms of financing economy. I mean, managing funds as the main source of economic growth. Because it's not easy to find sustained funds to keep economy growing in Turkey. Basically, Turkish capitalism is facing its limits and want to go beyond those limits. That's a tough question because that's also a question of profitability. For the capitalist side. And this means either you cut the profits or cut the wages. There are two options. Of course, Erdogan government cannot cut the big buses profits. They depend on them. However, Erdogan government also adds some parameters to this problem. All of us call this problem as election economy in here. But actually, it's a deep-rooted problem in Turkish economy. I want to back to the legitimate problem. But Erdogan government, instinctively or reasonably, finds a way out of this problem, I must say. First of all, they wanted to keep economy growing and hold down unemployment. They printed money, they increased wages to keep economy of legitimacy in the so-called boundaries. We have a saying in here. Two things bring the government down. Empty pot and unemployment. So do they manage the economy or this crisis? I must say nothing mysterious here. They just using the time as a leverage point. So they postponed the hard burdens of the economic policy of the years that has passed. In the meantime, they use inflation as a leverage too. Likewise, to increase profits using inflation that makes big buses very happy, actually, very, very happy. Also, this gives them a gift at two points. Actually, the buses only discomfort is that the Erdogan government may not control this so-called economic stick during these years. And opposition's only economic alternative is that they say we can control better. We can use this stick better. I can say it for the trade union side that trade unions fight this policy as it should be because of series of reasons. But workers, laborers, especially some new and lively sections of the working class find new waves of trouble. We saw that the past two years, such as delivery workers find and gained their rights several times during the past years. That was an important spark for the whole class in Turkey and even for the larger crops to fight against government policies. I guess, basically, the answer of your question is like this. Absolutely. Also, now moving to another issue that has often been discussed, which is really about the political structures and institutions in the country. Now, we know that one allegation often leveled against Erdogan and his system is that they really centralized power, completely shifting the way Turkish politics is done, democratic institutions facing a huge amount of threat. At least whatever democratic institutions existed already facing a huge amount of threat. We have had, of course, parliamentarians being jailed, prominent opposition politicians being disqualified or being jailed. So, there's this sense that the Republican system we talked about is under a considerable attack. Could you maybe also take us through what has been the trajectory of that and what is happening in that aspect? Yeah, sure. So, I already mentioned a bit about the political system and the power and dilemma of Erdogan before. So, I want to explain more about the capitalist class in Turkey, because it's in close relation to this class. It's the capitalist class to put a final point on it, a few big family. I can name it, Koç and Sabancı families and some others. And their organization in Turkey, we call it Tursiat, basically the Patrons' club. You can name it. They supported presidential system. They had this dream about Turkey. Only two parties and a president. This was their dream. So, I think you too were familiar with this type of political system. We can see it firstly in England and also in United States. But in some other countries too. This makes a perfect condition to eliminate people's true choices. Their true parties as well as revolutionary parties like ours. And they created this parliamentary wall in terms of vote rates. It's 7 right now in Turkey, but back then it was 10. And dictate other parties, so called small parties, to don't interrupt us and even don't bother to join the elections. So, they first see this need in 60s in Turkey. Between 60s and 70s, Turkish working class people and growing the struggle created their own deputies and made them struggle in the parliament. They were deputies of working class, actually. They were socialists. And capitalist class, capitalists, here these policies, consequences. They used military coup. They changed the system. Finally, they changed the system to the two alliance version of it, like the United States, Republicans and Democrats. And president was the highway of this system, as it were. Because parliament was slow, but president would be faster in order to privatize economy, bend the strikes, pass the contracts and pass the boss friendly acts. So it's true that Erdogan benefited from the system weak point and make himself as a administrator or one man, as it were. Because the world was changing. Turkey was in state of a prolonged chaos and there was no exciting alternative to the Erdogan. But every time he used this system's weak points, we see that he himself gave opportunities to the big bosses as a political ammunition. But also as a gigantic profits of the corporates. And at the end of today, we should say that it is the bosses, the capitalists in Turkey who benefited most this political system as they always wanted to be. Right. That's very interesting because it connects to my next question also because in many parts of the world, you see that the right wing, in this case, the Islamist forces and the capitalists having a very interesting relation. So in that connection, I wanted to ask you about the Islamist project that you mentioned at the beginning in the first question. How has that project progressed? And as in what is the aim of that project, so to speak? You talked about how the AKP and Erdogan are basically considered a moderate Islamist force. But how have they sort of tried to intervene socially to bring about changes to sort of support their political agenda? Yeah, the image was moderate, but the real was different. Basically, AKP at the beginning of the 2000s formed as a project party in Turkey. I used the term project in both means as a Turkey's own difficulties, but also as a regional middleist, Mediterranean, as a part of imperial intervention. So it was a coalition of cliques and powers in AKP. There was Gulenists. It was a regional sect in Turkey. It's a close relation with the CIA. And there was liberals, there was extremists, etc. They are backed by United States and European Union. The AKP's agenda was simple, basically. The first, they needed to transform state practices to change the society in order to implement their agenda. And the region as well, the second one. They were coalition, but their agenda wasn't far from the clear. They wanted to speed up the counter-revolution radically in Turkey. Against the Turkey's founding values, we call it. They wanted to demolish republicanism and racism in Turkey. They also needed to change the foreign policy of Turkey in order to interfere in the neighbor countries and to help American and European imperialism. You know, in Yugoslavia and Syria and Iraq, there are lots of it. And they couldn't do that without changing the images and symbols, even memories in people's head. So their counter-revolution flared up. Education system, healthcare system, every part of the state apparatus transformed and filled with religious sects in Turkey. They seek to build a society run by religious code without racism. They seek to build a society in which exploited majority cannot struggle for their rights, but only comply with it. Of course, it won't be like Afghanistan or other countries. But here we are, Turkish way of it. I can say Turkish way suitable for Turkish capitalism. I mentioned about transformation and what blocked this transformation in Turkey at the beginning, the first question of yours. But I must say that they failed a lot of points on those years. However, they transformed society in a considerable degree. We accept that. It's the main opposition party, CHP, and their alliance is responsible from this mess. Because I stated earlier every time Erdogan and AKP stuck at the wall, hit the wall and receive a warning from the people of Turkey in June days or in Syria. It was the opposition rescued Erdogan, acting like a bilingual mediator. That's the basic. This actually brings me very, it's a good segue to the next question as well, which is really that of course the election has been in the media portrayed as a contest between Erdogan, the AKP, and the CHP. But like you, I think said at various points, there is often, sometimes you feel that there is no real difference on many issues between the two, especially on the issue of economy, whether on the issue of foreign policy there's going to be any difference is a big question. Often they may not be. And so it seems that the opposition's main argument is that they are not Erdogan. Right. So in other, there's not real understanding of what their alternative agenda is. So from the perspective of the Turkish Communist Party, from a left perspective so to speak, what do you, how do you see how Turkey can be sort of, say, let's say taken back or saved in the situation? Yeah, as you said, and I summarized the opposition's point of view, they are the same. They have same economic agenda. I can share our view briefly, our party's alternative. We have three main principle or element of our economic and social agenda. We say we will nationalize or stateize every strategic industry and corporation, including food monopolies, healthcare and education. We say that only plant and statist economy can guarantee people's welfare an event, even their life, as we can see in the massive earthquake in recent months. We say we will shut and end the activities of religious sex. There is no merit system in education or healthcare, nor a people's state until racism restored and established. That's why we will shut and end the activities of religious sex. Lastly, we say we will get out of NATO. So NATO is a terrorist organization, and we are part of NATO. Our soldiers serving abroad as part of NATO operations that will be recalled. American base in our country will be closed. The nuclear weapons in Jirlik, the city of Adana, the southern city in Turkey will be dismantled. There will be no cooperation with those who have accounts in our country's territories. Anti-imperialism and patriotism require this, I must say. Absolutely. And finally, maybe you could just take us through what the TKP's election campaign has been about. How is the party approaching the elections? Yeah, I can summarize briefly. We think that communism has solid roots in this country, Turkey. The past 30 years, but especially the recent years, for example the earthquake, but we see before that, the recent years proved our faults and plans. So this political system, regardless of who is going to win this election, will suffer from chaos. We can already now see that the next parliament will be full of sex rivalries and more. So we need to gain strength and prove that Turkey, as well as our people, of course, if we can do that, we can do more between two elections because we have one more election for the localities. Because there will be austerity policy in Turkey after the election. There will be political and legitimacy crisis. There will be a need to fight and consolidate against what is coming. So when we look at history, we see that Turkish people gain strength and energy to the struggle, only when they do the job by themselves. In streets, in squares, in factories, in neighborhoods, in schools, in universities. So we planned and created our election campaign according to these principles. Our deputies are the deputies of struggle, the deputies of their factories, their neighborhoods, their schools, their universities. We reach people, try to hold their hands, invite to a real struggle in our campaign. We want people's votes for our principles and our program, and want them to strengthen their ability to fight for. We think if we can do that, we will show and prove more of this. Both in the streets, but also in the parliament. But not by different alien powers, by our own powers and by our own organized power of the people. Thank you so much for talking to us, for giving us, I think, an understanding of Turkish politics that goes beyond just the slogans that come out during the elections and goes into a much more deeper analysis of capitalism itself, his role. Thank you so much for talking to us. And that's all we have time for today. We'll be covering the Turkish election closely, bringing in the results as well. So until then, keep reading and watching People's Dispatch.