Istanbul goes against Erdogan’s oppression

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FINALLY, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has heard the voice of the people who rejected his policies that bore bitter feelings of resentment toward the Justice and Development Party (JDP), and which affected the course of the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is happening in a country that has never tolerated totalitarianism characterized by the dictatorship practiced by JDP. Despite being in power for a period longer than the military, the previous regime was less repressive than the current one.

The Istanbul election wasn’t just a rerun for mayoral election in a major city; instead, it was a real indication of the Turkish people opposing Erdogan who usually rejects results when it’s not in his interest. A scenario is the parliamentary election in which the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) won about 78 seats and prompted Erdogan to call for a rerun, as he felt the rate at which division on his policies had reached and the negative impact on the economy after the fall of the Lira and decline in imports.

He also felt the heat that caused him to abandon the “Zero Problem” slogan and incessant interference in other countries’ internal affairs, including Egypt where he tried to present himself as a mentor after the Brotherhood hijacked power but became hostile to the country when the Egyptians revolted. The same scenario was repeated in Syria where he made a backyard to dump his internal problems, and to blackmail the European Union (EU) in his bid to join them.

He poses as someone fighting terrorism and another person who’s ready to flood the EU with refugees, hoping to pick up the dream of restoring the Ottoman Empire and presenting himself always as the main mentor in the Arab world through Syria in case he loses his EU bid. The same applies in Iraq where he drowned himself with terrorists all over the world.

Throughout the years, JDP has been causing havoc in Turkey’s relations with various Muslim countries in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It exploited anything that sparks differences and division in order to defeat the intellect.

While supporting terrorist groups in Libya, Turkey exploited Khashoggi’s murder case, which is merely a Saudi affair, to get back at Saudi Arabia for blacklisting the “Brotherhood” based on Saudi’s support toward Egypt (together with other Gulf states) in dealing with economic crisis that hit the country after the revolution of Jan 25 and the “Brotherhood” takeover.

Internally, JDP took Gülen’s group to justify its suppression of any opposition, which reached the peak through the ‘coup drama’ in 2017 wherein thousands were thrown into prison; portraying the old Fethullah Gülen who lives in the United States of America as possessing major powers.

All these political exercises caused the Turkish people to announce their opposition against JDP and its president, Erdogan who attempted to rig the mayoral election but finally, he bowed to the voice of the people and congratulated the winner with a tone close to that of mourning his political life, and indirectly announcing approach of the demise of his project that appears to be doomed in next general election.

From today, it is safe to say that Turkish people will start rebelling against Erdogan, the same way the Egyptians did to the “Brotherhood”. This can be considered the beginning of the end of the cancer that almost devastated the Arab and Muslim world. Today, there is nobody to mourn the loss of the party that neither promoted justice nor development, or the “Brotherhood”.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 9667 times!