Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gul Celkan
With the passing of time, we come to see that new terminology finds it way into languages.. Over the past ten years or so, I have always been annoyed by hearing the term “democratically elected” members of the parliament, the prime minister, and so forth.
When you google this word, and look at the photos, you will come to grips with my point: why I feel so irritated upon hearing this term. Firstly, you will realize there are photos of the “democratically elected” dictators of the third countries.
Isn’t this ironical? So dictators are elected democratically, what about the other parliamentarians or prime ministers, or even presidents? Nobody ever says American presidents nor French or German prime ministers were elected democratically.
The reason is obvious. In these most powerful countries of the world, all the mechanisms of democracy work. Why should they feel it a need to keep repeating their leaders went through democratic elections?
However, when you look at The third countries, they seem to have elected statesmen, however, beneath the surface they are dictators who were brought to power through elections.. To hide this fact, the term democratically elected has become very popular thus beguiling the world.
Let’s take a glance at the situation in Turkey. When local and foreign media refer to the current prime minister and his government, they insistingly use the term democratically elected. This hides the fact that the elections were not conducted properly, and was manipulated from within and without. When you go back and look at the diction used when referring to the cabinet members or parliamentarians, there is no mention of “democratically” elected Demirel, Ecevit, Ozal, Yilmaz or others. Nobody can say the Turkish election system did not function on democratic principles up until 2002. On the contrary, it was with the 2002 elections that Turkish elections and voting system bid farewell to fairness, clarity, accountability, and became a victim of an utterly antidemocratic system.
It is a known fact that when some very significant value is missing, people tend to patch it so that nobody would understand the reality. Its just like the commercials. The concept such ads try to bring to the forefront through constant repetition is actually not there. Yet, hearing it told to you persistently makes you believe it does exist. The alert ones will not fall into this trap,
The same situation applies to the Turkish elected government. They were made or rather forced to be elected, and as a cover for this heinous project , the term “democratically elected” has been in constant use for the past twelve years.
We the true believers of democracy have not fallen into this trap. People who think likewise cannot be beguiled by such misleading discourse used. No matter how often the term is used to refer to the current ruling party, we know there is a striking contrast between the reality and what is tried to be shown as factual.