Yesterday the Turkish state held elections voted and Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected as President. There was a great deal of commotion in the bourgeois media - the imperialist nations seemed to hope that Erdogan's main challenger would maybe not make the run (to become President in the first voting round more than 50% is needed), but at least give the “mad dictator” the lesson of a run-off. The hope was in Muharrem Ince, a secular former physics teacher, who focused in his election campaign mainly on the economic situation in Turkey and therefore realistic chances of a narrow victory in a run-off election were assumed. The economic situation in Turkey is catastrophic and unemployment rates are skyrocketing. Ince wanted to counteract this – of course in the service of the Turkish the bureaucratic bourgeoisie in the service of the imperialists and on the back of the Turkish people. He tried to sell himself as "one of the poor", when he really wanted a rapprochement to the imperialist EU. Well, that hope was shattered and Erdogan triumphed again - even though his opposition is already doubting the correct election outcome.
While certainly none of the six presidential candidates had the interests of the Turkish people in mind, the election is still important. Because now, the new constitution comes into force. Turkey has been in a state of emergency since the “attempted coup” in 2016, and the prisons are full of political prisoners who dared to openly oppose the reactionary Erdogan - and are now branded as "terrorists”. The new constitution is now providing much greater power to the old and new President Erdogan - the cause of these situations - enabling him to exploit and oppress the Turkish people even more effectively.
No bourgeois election will ever truly improve the situation of the people – if anything will happen, then it’s getting worse. That’s why the People’s War is carried out in Turkey – because it’s the sole path to liberation of the people.
And the justified rebellion of the people isn’t just a fight against Erdogan, it’s a fight against semi-feudalism, semi-colonialism and bureaucratic capitalism. In its core it’s a fight against imperialism, because all the misery of the Turkish people has its reason in the rotten order of society that is maintained by the imperialist states. In this regard we find it necessary to mention the election boycott campaign conducted by the Central Committee of the TKP/ML. The struggle against this society can’t be led to the ballot boxes. Chairman Mao teaches us, that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and therefore the people have to build up their army, otherwise they have nothing.
