Why are AKP officials silent about Gülen?

Ahmet Hakan*

- Why isn’t there an all-out declaration of war from every corner of the AKP against the Cemaat [Hizmet (Gulen) Movement] ?

- Why is Erdoğan the only leader at the front of the war against the Cemaat?

- Why are the heaviest attacks on Fethullah Gülen from Erdoğan, yet other AKP official are rather silent about it?

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The answers can be summarized as following:

- The ministers, members of the Parliament and spokespersons are not sure how the war with the Cemaat will end... That’s why they disappear and try to observe from a distance how this war will end.

- They are scared... They think if they speak against the Cemaat, they can be put on Cemaat’s blacklist. Their biggest nightmare: their voice recordings leaked to the public...

- Candidates for the local elections do not want to antagonize the Cemaat. By avoiding talking, they are trying to at least prevent the Cemaat from openly working against them. Look at Melih Gökçek, the AKP’s mayoral candidate for Ankara.

- No one, not one of them has internalized the war with Cemaat to the degree Tayyip Erdoğan has. They cannot come up with arguments, have no answers to questions and cannot provide explanations to themselves of “why did we enter this war?”

- They are not very good at U-turns... They just cannot switch to the phase of insulting someone they used to talk with respect toward up until yesterday. They have not developed talent in that respect.

- There has been a certain degree of intermingling with the Cemaat over the years. In the family, in the neighborhood, in the districts, in the cities...They keep looking face to face. Therefore they cannot all of a sudden cut loose, as Erdoğan did.

- They are frightened by the over-confident stance of Cemaat, which for 40 years had avoided taking risks, refrained from being at odds with authority and always tried to appease the powerful. They say “there is something fishy here,” and act reluctantly.

Urgent answers

Dear Muammer Güler, Egemen Bağış, Zafer Çağlayan...

You cannot save yourselves by:
-Hiding behind Prime Minister Erdoğan’s high profile lectures...
-Hoping “AKP will get 50 percent and we will be cleared off...”
-Keeping silence...
-Waiting for the war between the government and Cemaat to end with the victory to the former...
-Not making any statement about accusations directed to you.

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-You have to talk, answer and explain if transparency is paramount, if accountability is still valid, if the ways are open for monitoring...

These are my questions to you:

To Zafer Çağlayan: Did you get a watch worth 700,000 Turkish Liras as a present or not? If you did take it, what did you give in return? If you did not take it, why don’t you come to the public sphere and cry out “I did not take it?”

To Muammer Güler: How many houses does your son own? How can he refer to trillions as a “few bucks?” How did your son make all this money? Why did you resign if you had done nothing wrong?

To Egemen Bağış: Reza Zarrab (the Azerbaijani businessman with links to Iran) comes into your office with bags filled with money; this is obvious in the video recordings. Why don’t you say anything about this claim? Why don’t you say, “I have not taken any bribery,” and ask to be tried on the Supreme Council? What do you say about claims that there were wrong doings in using the EU funds?

*Ahmet Hakan is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece was published on March 11. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.

Published on Hurriyet Daily News, 11 March 2014, Tuesday