On April 7, Red Herald published an article on the current call of the TKP/ML calling for the boycott of the upcoming elections in Turkey with translated excerpts for the statement. We henceforth mirror the publication made on the website.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist has published a declaration calling for an election boycott. The presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey will take place on May 14th, only three months after the earthquake in Maraş. Other than this, the people in Turkey have been suffering from hyperinflation and increasing political and national persecution in the recent years. In this situation, The so-called “opposition” in the Turkish parliament tries to use the crisis to topple Erdoğan, who has been ruling the country for 20 years.
TKP/ML says:
“The 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections are taking place in a situation where the economic crisis has deepened and spread all over the world and has reached an irreversible, bringing inter-state political tensions on the agenda as well. Turkey, on the other hand, is struggling in a crisis that continues under these conditions and deepens in parallel with the crisis in the world economy. With the exchange rate-protected investment system burdened on the backs of the people with very high borrowings and a current account deficit that continues to break records, Turkey seems to have reached a dead end that is being postponed until after the elections. No matter which wing is elected in the election, a much greater poverty and robbery-level tax exploitation awaits the people of Turkey…
We must emphasize that this election is not a choice between a one-man regime or a parliamentary regime. Evaluations in this context are a great mistake in historical terms. Those who promise democracy, freedom, justice and a strong country united around a single leader are political lackeys shaped according to the interests of a handful of compradors, feudalists and bureaucrats who are deeply tied to imperialism in the process of the great worldwide upheaval. Throughout the history of the republic, they wanted us to believe that we could achieve justice, freedom and democracy by believing in them and persevering. Each time they wanted us to be fooled into believing that it is the government in power that is bad and the opposition, which feeds on the same relations of production as them, that is good and virtuous. But the real problem is never about being bad or lacking virtue. If this were the case, the rulers themselves would have blocked every bad or unqualified person from the very beginning. Precisely because the interests of the rulers required it, the powers were formed as they were determined and behaved as they were determined. Today, those who come calling for democracy, freedom and justice will fulfill the interests of the same rulers. This is a reality and this reality must be overcome. The way to overcome the current crisis is not to remove the “unqualified” through elections and elect the “qualified”…"
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is the biggest rival to Erdoğan and his party, has promised to make Turkey more democratic and liberal, and to establish a separation of powers according to the bourgeois ideal. In this, they are trying to build a large coalition united by being against Erdoğan. TKP/ML refutes the idea of “voting against fascism”:
“We communists are in the most determined and direct line of struggle against the conservative, misleading and reactionary line of struggle aimed at defeating fascism through elections as a remedy or a way, that is, against the path with a false consciousness that puts the masses on a wrong path. Considering the character of the general process that distances the masses from the revolution, together with the comprehensive problems and weakness of the revolutionary line of struggle, we are in the furthest position against more indirect methods of struggle. The tactics to be determined in the elections should undoubtedly serve our strategy. It is our revolutionary duty to establish the line on which we will tell the masses our line of struggle in the most decisive and direct way and mobilize on this axis.
In this sense, the most decisive and direct struggle tactic in this process is to boycott the elections.”
The HDP, which supports the Kurdish nationalist movement and is the second largest “opposition” party in the parliament, does not put forward their own candidate for the presidential election but joins the coalition to support Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the CHP. For decades, the CHP insisted that there is no separate Kurdish culture or language, and has supported laws which increase the persecution of the Kurdish. The CHP is now however acting apologetic in order to gain the votes of the Kurdish to win the election. TKP/ML writes on the solution of the national question of the Kurdish:
“The solution of the Kurdish national question is a question of revolution. It is an issue that will have a real and complete solution within the program of the revolution, on its axis. It will never be resolved by reforms, or even by enlarged national rights. Because the revolutionary solution to the national question is possible when the oppressed nation gains the Right to Self-Determination, that is, the right to establish a state. The practical-political struggle that will expand the gains regarding the Kurdish national question and advance their rights must be continued effectively and vigorously throughout the process of our revolution. Real and complete liberation is possible only with the struggle for the People’s Democratic Revolution and a line connected to the proletarian revolutions.
Our revolution, which will proceed along the lines of people’s war, will liberate the will of the Kurdish Nation and will also defeat the chauvinism of the Turkish people.”
They conclude with the slogans:
“Neither the Presidency nor the Parliament, All the People on the Path of Revolution!
Don’t be fooled by the Deception of Reforms, Don’t Go to the Polls!
Hope is not in the ballot box, but in the People’s Democratic Revolution!
Don’t Vote, Support the People’s War!
Elections no, Long Live the Revolution!
Our Path is People’s War, Our Goal is People’s Democratic Revolution!”
