Meaningless fight in the CHP

After the April 16 referendum on constitutional amendments, while it was being debated whether or not the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) would be able to consolidate the "No" votes, a meaningless fight erupted within the party. 

It looks like former CHP chair Deniz Baykal's statement - saying a party convention should be held to determine a candidate if current CHP head Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is not planning to be a candidate in the 2019 presidential election - was the first spark. But in fact Baykal was not wrong. 

In 2019, Turkey will not be holding a referendum. We will be electing the president of the presidential system. The winner of this election needs 50.01 percent of the vote to run the country alone for the next five years. 

It may be possible to unite the different segments who voted "No" in the referendum under a kind of "umbrella candidate," but the realities of politics do not give much hope for this.

The target should not be maintaining the 49 percent won in the referendum but rather winning the 50.01 percent. One of the candidates in the election is already apparent. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a very organized political party, and this party's ideology has deep social roots. 

If the vote goes to a second round, the run-off candidate would most likely be the CHP's candidate. For this reason, the troubled situation that the CHP is currently in is significant. 

The CHP, with its current texture and ideology, looks something like an ostrich. It is neither a bird nor a camel. It is not really a social democratic party. It is also not really a left-wing party. It is also not a Kemalist party. 

The CHP cannot represent any one of these lines properly, and it cannot achieve...