The crash-landing of a Germanwings airliner in the French Alps with 144 passengers aboard was the

most tragic accident in the history of aviation. Apparently suffering from a serious depression, co-pilot

Andreas Lubitz locked the first pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately slammed the airliner, killing 144

people aboard.

With this tragic accident, we realized that it was a gross mistake to leave an airliner’s administration to

the initiative of a single person although this system was designed as a measure against hijacking

attempts.

In his column at Bugün newspaper, Orhan Kemal Cengiz recently drew attention to this airplane crash.

“The fate of airplanes, vessels and countries must never be left to the initiative of a single person…

There must be some mechanism which will supervise and counterbalance that single person against the

possibility of his/her deliberately or involuntarily making wrong decisions…

Otherwise, airplanes, vessels and countries may be victims of agonizing accidents,” he warns.

But I am afraid no one from the ruling party heeds his warning. They believe that the plane will go faster

and fly higher when one person is at its helm; so their election manifesto relies principally on the

presidential system. Moreover, although he had recently said, “They criticize me of being impartial… Did

I say that I want a specific party to secure 400 seats in Parliament?” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

more recently indicated that he had “personally read” the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP)

election manifesto and express “his own views” about it and implicitly acknowledged that he isn’t

impartial.

In an environment where the economic confidence index has dropped to 74.85 percent with a whopping

15.4-percent decrease and everyone is concerned about low growth rates and the Settlement Process has

been shelved although everyone is very hopeful about it, the groundwork for the presidential system has

largely been laid down.

The police forces were vested with extensive powers and authorities including the license to shoot. Any

police office may use this license if s/he is suspicious of anyone. The extensive powers and authorities

were implemented even before the bill was enacted.

The judicial authorities were bypassed to censor the Internet. There are signs that the bill may be

construed to expand its scope arbitrarily. For instance, an investigation was launched against 58 people

who used Twitter to criticize the Anatolia news agency in connection with the local elections of March 30

on charges of “insults, slander and inciting people to hatred and animosity.”

In clear violation of the Constitution, President was given the authority to use the discretionary fund.

President will reportedly use this fund for closed intelligence!

Thus, the infrastructure for the presidential system is in place to a great extent. In the elections slated for

June 7, we will say “yes” or “no” to the legal framework of this actual situation. In other words, this is

more like a plebiscitary vote than a general election.

As you may remember, when things went wrong with the European Union, they had said: “We will turn

the Copenhagen [political] criteria into Ankara criteria and continue on our way.” The ultimate point in

Ankara criteria is the Domestic Security Bill that was recently enacted. Now, they push for the Turkish-

type presidential system, which is nothing but, in Murat Belge’s words, a plebiscitary dictatorship which

is freed from all checks and balances and where the president calls the shots.

As the election date nears, President is making clear that he will not tolerate any election outcome that

will drive him away from the presidential system. All hands have been called to the quarters including

the police, the military, the parliamentary majority and the Treasury. The style that boosts tension in the

country is now more confrontational. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and its co-chair

Selahattin Demirtaş are under fire as they pose the greatest threat to Erdoğan’s presidential dream. If

the HDP passes the 10 percent election threshold, this will spell the end of that dream.

Thus, we are holding our breath and waiting for the election slated for June 7 to come without any glitch.

It is primarily the responsibility of the government under the Constitution to avert any threat to or

suspicion about the elections or any incident that may lead to a great chaos in Turkey. For this reason,

Demirtaş’s warning about this danger must be taken into consideration.

Voters should be allowed to have the final say. We will wait and see if voters will leave the plane’s control

to a single pilot and we find ourselves praying to God that our fate should not be like the passengers of

the Germanwings Flight 9525…