Packing hundreds of thousands of people into a venue on the periphery of Istanbul isn’t going to achieve much in bringing down a regime as harsh as that of Turkey’s Erdogan administration. Perhaps if those people peacefully marched on the presidential palace or occupied the centre of the city, bringing it to a standstill, some headway might be made. But the Saturday (March 20) “Freedom for Imamoglu” rally along a seafront avenue of Maltepe district on Istanbul’s Asian side is what the Republican People’s Party (CHP) decided on as a follow-up to the big rallies it held for seven nights in the heart of the city—and that is what they got. As eye-catching as the gathering may have been, it was toothless and the people of Turkey deserve better from the main opposition party, more imagination.

CHP chair Ozgur Ozel delivered biting criticism of the government. The crowd chanted loudly against the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The crowd dispersed. The CHP promised to keep doing this kind of thing up and down the country for weeks to come.

If hundreds of thousands of people regularly meet, will Erdogan think of resigning?

On March 26, bne IntelliNews said of the upcoming CHP rally: “It will be a good occasion for the media to churn out some more stories that treat the CHP ever so seriously. However, it will simply provide for more perfect nonsense, while tiring angry crowds, lacking imaginative leadership, continue with meaningless activities.”

The response of Turks to the arrest and jailing of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu—since stripped of his mayoral position by the interior ministry but also made CHP’s official presidential candidate—has offered a clicks fest for the media and their legions of short-attention-span instant-gratification-seeking clickers. The media and the clickers scan the world for some action. Action consumed, they move on to look for some more action. Anywhere will do. What ails them is not a discussion to be had here. But don’t kid yourself that most media or readers around the world are genuinely interested in the fate of Turkey (interestingly the BBC home page in the UK today did not feature the big event in Istanbul, but did carry the story, “Hundreds of thousands celebrate Newcastle cup win”). The CHP will have enough difficulty sustaining interest at home in the struggle to save the last remnants of the country’s democracy from the clutches of the all-powerful Erdogan. The way the world is right now, international interest could fall off very quickly.

Realities

Since the detention of Imamoglu 10 days ago, the police have beaten thousands of people protesting in Istanbul. Around 2,000 have been detained. Right now, many of the assaulted are being treated in hospitals. Among them are women that claim that police officials sexually harassed them.

On March 29, a police officer slapped a lawyer in his face at Caglayan courthouse on Istanbul’s European side. He was a lawyer representing children that were detained while trying to gather for a demonstration in front of Cevahir shopping mall.

The CHP do not comment on such incidents. They are so busy playing at being the opposition for the media, they’ve forgotten what being the opposition truly means.

Controlled opposition, controlled events

Since March 23, this publication has been parroting: “The Erdogan regime does not care about all the talk, the human values, the law or anything else in that vein. It has an army, it has a police force, an intelligence service, private security personnel and paramilitary forces. It has tanks, jets, guns and bombs.”

Such controlled events as today’s held by CHP helps the regime sow confusion about the actual situation with politics and power in the country. When observed from space, it looks like a real opposition is allowed in Turkey.

It bears repeating that Turkey’s regime refrains from claiming massive “80%” victories in elections (something Russia's Putin regime is known for) since Ankara is dependent on external borrowing from investors who need to be seen to be dealing with governments that can be deemed “acceptable”. Oil and gas poor, with a chronic current account imbalance, it cannot escape the constant need to meet the Turkish economy’s never-ending thirst for great inflows of dollars from abroad.

Thus “Erdogan central” stages some theatre (the observer, for instance, can expect a “49%” victory in the first presidential voting round and a “52%” triumph in the second round) that, from space, can be said to resemble “competitive authoritarianism”. The think tanks are only now concluding that competitive authoritarianism has died in Turkey. In fact, nothing even close to it has been around for many years.

Conclusion

You can hold as many meetings as you wish as long as you do not pose a threat to the regime. You can deliver impassioned speeches. You can do whatever you want.

However, if you become a threat to the regime and ignore the warnings, you’ll end up in jail, just as Imamoglu and many others have.

CHP chair Ozgur Ozel, known scathingly as 'Minister of the Opposition' in Turkey, is not in a cell since he is no threat to the Erdogan regime,” this publication reiterated on March 20.