Kemal Kilicdaroglu leader of Republican People's Party (CHP) delivers a speech during a Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016. Emrah Gurel / Press Association. All rights reserved.As the implications of last month’s coup attempt continue to shake Turkey, opposition-government relations in the country are undergoing a complete shift. While much attention has been cast on how rapprochement between the opposition and the AKP has created an atmosphere of unity in Turkey that could dissolve social polarization, little attention has been cast on the negative implications this may have.
On Sunday, a ‘democracy and martyrs rally’ was held in Istanbul. In addition to the AKP government and President Erdoğan, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) accepted Erdoğan’s invitation and attended. Controversially, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, the pro-Kurdish opposition, was excluded. The party won slightly over 10 per cent of the vote last November and holds more parliamentary seats than the MHP. The CHP criticized the party’s exclusion but this did not prevent it from attending and it did not bring up the exclusion during the event.
Preceding the rally, President Erdoğan invited the CHP and MHP to a meeting at the presidential palace, where the steps to be taken in the wake of the coup were discussed. The HDP, as at the rally, was again excluded. This meeting and the rally have demonstrated that, even if the thawing of relations between the AKP and the opposition might lead to political consensus, it is at the expense of the HDP and strictly tied to of a new, post-coup political order.
