Elections are always related to the future and political parties keep future hopes alive with promises. From Kılıçdaroğlu's statements it is not hard to see how barren the CHP is in this sense. The only promise from the CHP leader is a bonus payment for everyone
The most interesting phenomenon of the June 7 elections might be the new Republican People's Party (CHP). There is no evident new idea, no new future strategy or project. The deputy candidate list is quite average, but they have a new advertiser. The main opposition also partnered up with a renowned election strategy firm based in the U.S. Consequently, we should get ready to see many creative ideas and moves during this two-month electoral period. Such an effort is necessary since a decline in votes for the CHP of about 20 percent might end the career of CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu given the fact that it will be another four years to the next election. This is not even a remote possibility, because the CHP's base wants the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) to pass the 10 percent election threshold, leaving some CHP proponents inclined to vote for the HDP. The CHP needs to increase its votes with an effective public strategy in order to preserve its internal stability.
Therefore, everyone has been impatiently awaiting their first electoral campaign. Last week, a commercial film was broadcast on TV stations corresponding to the party's Istanbul rally. At the beginning of the commercial, the slogan of which is: "Applaud as a nation," people from various professions stare at the camera with serious expressions on their faces. Then they start to applaud together and a serious narrator says that they are applauding in order to protest "the known mentality that tyrannizes freedom, justice, secularity, democracy and the Republic." It is emphasized that this is a challenge to the ones who have turned Turkey into an unlivable country. After the narrator says, "We are applauding until our hands swell up," a striking slogan follows: "Let's vote and let them go."
The commercial text assumes that everyone knows who turned the country into an unlivable place. Of course it refers to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) with "let them go." This approach indicates that the CHP believes it has no chance to receive votes from the AK Party's base. For the CHP, the only political target is the anti-AK Party groups from the secular strata of society. But what could the voting rate of this group be? It roughly corresponds to only 40 percent, even if we include all the opposition groups. Evidently, this is the limit of the CHP's political foresight. The aim is to receive 30 percent of the total vote out from this 40 percent of the electorate. However, in such a case, the HDP would certainly remain below the threshold, which would reinforce the victory of the AK Party and open the path to a presidential system, which they fear. For the first time, the AK Party wants the main opposition CHP to receive as many votes as it can get in this election.
Maybe strategists considered 25 percent to be a success for the CHP and thought that they would enable this with the discourse they came up with. But they surely know that this campaign is a confession of defeat, lack of capacity and despair. After 13 years of AK Party rule, the only message the CHP has is their dream of getting rid of the ruling power. Seemingly, the CHP has nothing to say about life, people or the future. If they had, the advertising firm would surely include it in the campaign. Besides, elections are always related to the future and political parties keep future hopes alive with promises. From Kılıçdaroğlu's statements we infer how barren the CHP is in this sense. The only promise from the CHP leader is a bonus payment for everyone. After the AK Party won many elections with high rates by categorically condemning populism, it is strange to see that the main opposition is still entrapped by its former pathetic rhetoric.The CHP believes that its votes will increase by addressing the voters whose only aim is voting out the AK Party, but they are mistaken, since no voter goes to the polls only with negative considerations. If this is their only chance, it would be more realistic for the CHP to consider 20 percent of the vote as their target.