CHP Chairman Özgür Özel answered İsmail Küçükkaya's questions on Halk TV on the morning of April 4. I am someone who stays away from television interviews with politicians, which, with exceptions, have ordinary content, but Özgür Özel's performance since the election night made me feel like making an exception for him, and I turned on Halk TV on the morning of April 4 with the determination to watch it until the end .

When the program ended, I said to myself: The media will skip over the historically important words Özgür Özel said at the beginning of the speech and talk about the election, the candidates, etc. It will be enough to quote the titles... It happened exactly as I thought, so I feel obliged to quote Özel's words word for word.

Özgür Özel said the words that I would like to bring to your attention, while answering İsmail Küçükkaya's short and clear question: "Dear chairman, how did you win?"

The answer came like this:

“By doing many right things together and staying away from some mistakes... Let me tell you the most basic, what I believe in, the most essential thing... I also explained this to our Central Executive Board. If the state and the nation compete, the nation wins. As the Republican People's Party is a founding party, we have established the state, this is a very proud thing, we are proud, we have the right to boast. But the founding will reflex sometimes pushes the CHP's daily administrators to always be on the side of the state. When you are on the side of the state, sometimes you cannot be on the side of the nation. We have this truth: In this country, people love the state, they join the military upon the order of the state, they are willing to give their lives, and they do not let their state say a word. But even if the state opposes them, they will do what is necessary. When the state tries to rule the nation, it resists. Example, 1983 Kenan Evren. He said, "You will choose this person with military background" and gave direction to the nation. Özal came with a great shock. Özal was also surprised, but the nation won in the state-nation competition.

“It is very controversial, when I was at Ege University Pharmacy, the headscarf ban came, they tried to prevent our friends from entering the laboratory [against this ban]. I was the one who started the protest at the Faculty of Pharmacy. I said, 'You cannot impose a headscarf ban. If our friends do not attend classes, neither do I.' I was one of the top students in the class, one of only four to finish in four years. We all left the laboratory together... Sir, there was a fire in the laboratory, it would be dangerous if the headscarf caught fire, and they also tell lies like that. When they took them in, that's when we went in. The ban didn't last very long there. I went to support the headscarf protests in front of Ege University (…) Do you know what was happening that day, the state was interfering with what people wore. The state and the nation came face to face that day. And the state imposed a headscarf ban in universities. Excluding only female students while men with the same views are entering university is inequality between men and women. Moreover, declaring everyone who covers their heads as a political Islamist and everyone who covers their heads as an enemy of the republic; Who are you to decide this?

“That day, for example, some CHP members mistakenly sided with the state. However, CHP members should have grabbed the throat of the one who gave instructions not to enter the army headquarters with headscarves. Let's come to July 15th... That night they told me that there were Ataturkist officers among them. "Then I said God damn them too."

İsmail Küçükkaya intervened here and asked a critical question: "Do you mean that this understanding you have has now begun to dominate the CHP?"

Özgür Özel's answer:

“We are working on this together, now let's not be unfair, Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's attitude towards the headscarf issue, for example, the chairman was not hostile to the headscarf there for years. But I want to say this, there too, for example, those who were in a wrong position on the side of the state were disconnected from the hearts of the nation, and there was a problem.”

Finally, Özgür Özel brought up Erdoğan's and the AK Party's relationship with the state and clarified the number one factor in winning the election with the following words:

“There is something different where we are today. Tayyip Erdoğan sided the election in his favor by not publishing our advertisements on Anadolu Agency and TRT, and by involving governors and even garrison commanders. Here we sided with the nation, they sided with the state. This is the case in all world politics. "If the state and the nation come face to face, sooner or later the nation will win."

Neither the economy nor the candidates nor anything else; Of course, there are these too, but as can be understood from his insistent emphasis, Özgür Özel places this state-nation issue at the "most fundamental" of the factors that won the election. Apparently, this is not an evaluation that was said lightly, but was shared after long thought. And it's very, very important.

Which door did the elections open for CHP?

The title of Gürbüz Özaltınlı's article published in Serbestiyet on April 3 was as follows: “CHP did not win the elections because the secularists changed. But the elections opened the door to change both the CHP's own base and Turkey.”

In his article, Özaltınlı made a special emphasis on the role that "the leadership team that provides success and provides self-confidence" can play in this change, and I believe that he will also be excited when he reads the sentences I quoted above from Özgür Özel.

I wrote a few articles claiming that, based on the statements made by CHP cadres after Özgür Özel was elected as the leader, it was understood that the CHP would not be willing to take off its state coat. That's not all, I have been writing articles like this for 20 years about CHP's will to become a 'civilian' party. Now, after the elections, a hopeful picture has emerged that the CHP leadership can take bold steps in this field with the self-confidence it has gained.

In the next article, I will discuss the possibilities of this picture flourishing or drowning halfway through.