On 30th March 2023, the Turkish parliament came together to accept the protocol approving Finland’s NATO membership, it was adopted with the votes of all the parties participating in the vote. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Good Party all voted in favor, while the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) abstained but was in parliament, and the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP) did not take part at all.
This was a historical important vote in the aggressive expansion of NATO and a chance for political parties to show their stance against imperialism, and they all united to serve it.
Before we begin, we’d like to state that we do not support parliamentary politics. Our people should not be made to pick the “lesser evil”. However, we feel the need to expose the contradictions in the Finland vote and so we write this article.
The political parties above currently make up three alliances in the 2023 Turkey election’s:
- “People’s Alliance” – AKP & MHP…
- “Nation Alliance” – CHP & Good Party…
- “Labour and Freedom Alliance” – HDP & TİP…
The stance of the fascist ruling AKP & its ally the nationalist MHP (an apparatus of NATO in Operation Gladio) was already obvious. We do not feel the need to analyse this alliance of the elections.
The “Labour and Freedom Alliance” had announced their support for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of CHP and the candidate of the “Nation Alliance”. The so-called “leftist” parties united behind this “lesser evil”, who then supported the approval of Finland’s NATO membership.
This stance of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the vote isn’t surprising either, the alliance document deems NATO to be of “critical importance in terms of the deterrence it provides for Turkey’s national security,” and emphasises the importance of the EU as well as of the Council of Europe. And in an interview with Reuters, Kılıçdaroğlu goes as far as to say NATO is a “guarantee of democracy”.
But what about the so called “leftists” of HDP and TİP uniting behind Kılıçdaroğlu, and not showing their stance against NATO in the Finland vote? These two parties took a deliberate decision not to oppose NATO.
The Kurdish nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party always takes an “anti-war” stance in parliament, so why did it not oppose the growing aggressive nature of NATO which has spilled the blood of the people for decades? HDP deputy Hişyar Özsoy justified their abstain vote by saying: “We never vote ‘yes’ to a military agreement, we always say ‘no’. This is the first time we did this in a military agreement. But this time we decided not to take part in this vote because we consider Finland’s security concerns legitimate, and we didn’t want to say ‘no’ either.” HDP also openly supports the US proxy force in Syria, the “Rojava Revolution,” and is part of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Moving onto the populist Workers’ Party of Turkey which says it is “socialist”, they did not take part in the talks and in the vote. When we analyse their stance on social media they are “anti-NATO” with statements, but they didn’t take part in this crucial vote in parliament. Neither did they provide a self criticism of why they weren’t in parliament to show their stance against the expansion of NATO. In a statement a few days later, they said “No to the arms race, no military pacts: NATO must be dissolved!” but isn’t it a contradiction to say this and not oppose Finland’s NATO membership? Their party programme also says: “relationships with the international agencies that subordinate our country to imperialism are terminated, foreign policy is based on peace advocacy and fraternity of peoples.”
Overall, this vote has openly exposed the pro-imperialist nature of both sides in the election. The so called “leftist” parties have aligned together and showed their support behind US-NATO in the war against Russia. NATO is a threat to the people’s of the world and it is the duty of all those who call themselves leftist’s to oppose it.
