History has repeated itself. The Turkish establishment never learns from past experiences. It did not learn the lessons taught by the Turkish electorate over the last five decades.

This is a strange election. It is an election that was called after a political crisis, namely the inability of Parliament to elect a new president due to an external intervention.

As I am a candidate running for Parliament in the July 22 general elections and have been working for almost two months now for this purpose, I thought it would be interesting for my readers to inform them about my recent experiences. These experiences may provide a sneak peek into what life and politics in rural Anatolia is like.  

The critical question about this election is its main theme. Is it the economy, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) violence or the presidential election? What is the primary issue for the electorate? This is of course a question that has many answers, depending on who is asked. That said, my travels in Anatolia over recent weeks produced a number of impressions that may provide some answers.