CC of Communist Party, Turkey (KP) made a press statement about the ongoing debate in Turkish parliament on presidency.
"What happened today in and outside the Parliament is the last act of reactionary AKP's tyranny.
They push to open the path for presidency system using any means of tyranny in the Parliament, the so-called representative of the national will. They even strictly control their own MPs. They censor press, blackout media, fill streets with riot control vehicles and pepper gas. All that clarify what presidency system for our country means: legalizing Islamist fascism. Efforts of fascists and Islamic reactionaries are in concordance with their nature. They just do their job.
No doubt that standing against this is a civic duty. However, any call for struggle reduced merely to "standing against presidency system" is a big sham!
The watered down opposition of the establishment gave a red-carpet treatment to the Islamist reactionaries and continues to do so. The efforts under the pretext of "the largest possible coalition of forces" against the constitution of presidency turn into a big lie and moreover, helps justify the very question of presidency.
First of all, this is not the time nor the place for the calls for "a broad social consensus for the New Constitution" aiming the AKP. We shall not agree with bigots, exploiters, subcontractors of imperialism; and in reality, the AKP neither have the conditions for, nor wills to such a consensus. A new constitution is established for a new system or regime. Any reform AKP leads or participates in, on the other hand, is historically illegitimate.
AKP's loss of legitimacy has been proven in the recent past when our people took it to the streets.
It is true that the energy burst out in June 2013 is now cooled down, but one thing did not change: Turkish society resists AKP's bigotry, and any of its attempts to self-justification.
If any strategy by opposition parties ignores this reality, then it clearly does not have any serious objective. It is just an eye-wash!
Naturally, we do not have any questions for fascists and fundamentalists. But we ask the opposition parties in the Parliament: why do you participate in the discussions about a new constitution and provide those fascists and fundamentalists the legitimacy they need?
Second, there is an obvious fact that Erdoğan is practically performing presidency for longer time, but especially since the beginning of the state of emergency. The project of presidency system can simply be summarized as the constitutionalization of the ongoing state of madness. Legalization of an illegal, legally invalid practice surely creates a new situation. However, if the struggle against the actual practice is not strong enough, it will be impossible to counter the attack properly.
Fascists and fundamentalists are enemies of people and they are on the other side, but we have to ask those who say that they are against the presidential system: where do you stand? Are you really against it? Or, is it possible that some part of the opposition think that presidency without Erdoğan can be somehow desirable? Can some part of opposition be imagining a presidential system recognizing Kurdish identity as some ground for an agreement?
Third, Parliamentary opposition against presidency is winking at fascist party MHP, trying to convince the fascists using concepts like "ages old customs of Turks" and even trying to find democrats within reactionary party AKP. These efforts are in vain and good for nothing but strengthening the hands of new reactionary regime. Such efforts in the name of left-wing opposition are a result of the long abdication of reason in politics.
What underlies these conditions is obvious.
It was not fundamentalist bigots but modern, Western-oriented TÜSİAD, the association of capitalists in Turkey who first discovered the benefits of presidential system.
The governing party relies on the ground provided by big capitalist actors while imposing fundamentalist and fascist system of presidency. It is true that the results desired by the AKP and the dictator do not totally coincide with the desires of TÜSİAD. However, a centralized system of authority will be nightmare for workers and a paradise for the capitalists; this is definitely a TÜSİAD project.
This reality stands side by side with the anomalies of the "struggle" against presidency by the watered down opposition-within-system. Big capitalists are the common ancestors of the reactionary government and western-oriented opposition.
That is why opposition within the Parliament is an eye-wash. The fraudulence absorbs the energy of large working masses of our country.
This picture should not be interpreted as if our people has no choice against the fundamentalist fascist attack. Our material reality, and our people will reverse the current course of history. The AKP's rule and its constitution project are not natural, organic, and direct reflection of its legitimacy and power in society. The AKP cannot continue its rule without radically transforming social fabric and this is a suicide flight.
A suicide flight is inevitable. So are the results of it for Erdoğan family.
If this suicide flight is not to be the end of the whole country, workers, the real friends of the people must fulfill their duties; they must not tag behind the eye-wash efforts of opposition.
The only way out is struggling against religionization and fundamentalism through organizing a real social struggle.
That is where we invite the workers of Turkey; this is the way we will step out together."
