In politics, opposition parties usually capitalise on governments’ failed policies and promise voters that they will do better than the ruling party if they come into office. Another political feature of opposition parties is that they tend to express trends in public opinion so that they can popularise themselves.

Although such conventional norms regarding opposition parties around the world are more or less the same, Turkey has been an exception in recent years. The opposition parties CHP and MHP have associated themselves not with the public and its concerns, but those who perceive the public as a threat to their hegemony.

Let’s take CHP’s case, the main opposition party in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. One would expect CHP to make heavy criticisms of the ruling AK Party for not doing enough to lift bans on religious garb at schools and state offices. But, contrary to expectations, while AK Party together with MHP made amendments to the constitution and lifted the ban on headscarf at universities, CHP took the constitutional amendments to the court and the Constitutional Court made its decision in favour of CHP and annulled the amendments. Since the ultimate goal of a party is to come to power through elections by trying to gain public’s trust, CHP’s strict secular policy over religion, as seen in headscarf issue, is not very helpful in developing communication with the public and for its goal of coming to power, if there is ever such a goal.

CHP’s stance on Ergenekon and Israeli war crimes in Gaza is not very different from that of headscarf issue, in terms of disconnect between CHP’s discourse and public demands. While the government has issued statements strongly criticising Israel for the civilian casualties in Gaza Strip, we have hardly heard from CHP a word about Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

CHP, as the main opposition party, could have been the main organiser of the demonstrations held across the country against Israeli massacre of Palestinians, but its disconnect with the public hindered it from taking the initiative. Not only holding demonstrations, but building a discourse on forcing the goverment to cancel all military accords with Israel would have earned CHP popular support.

CHP’s silence over the massacre in Gaza is seen an implicit support to Israel. The ruling AK Party owns CHP much for its disconnect with the public. There is much to say about what the ruling AK Party should do and have done with regards to Israeli attacks on Gaza, but thanks to CHP’s silence, people have reluctantly been supportive of AKP’s ‘the best of the worst’ Gaza policy.