The Night of the Great Collapse: The Death Certificate of the Justice and Development Party
Ahmed Oussar
The events that unfolded during the ninth conference of the Justice and Development Party require little analysis: a party without direction, a conference lacking a cause, and leadership devoid of genuine legitimacy. From the outset, everything was laid bare: a battle for seats among elites completely disconnected from the reality that once shaped them. No programs, no self-critique, no new visions — only a pitiful gathering around individuals, as if the problem always lay with who leads, not with the road the party has strayed from irretrievably.
In the conference hall, the scene was shocking: fundamental questions about the reasons for the party’s significant decline over the past two decades were absent, along with any courage to acknowledge responsibilities. Instead of discussing rescue plans for the political landscape, the conference devolved into a bazaar of loyalties, where leaders were selected based on the logic of distributing spoils rather than on the effort to rebuild the project. No one was concerned with reviewing the experience or proposing future visions. Everyone was preoccupied only with securing a foothold upon the wreckage of the sinking ship.
Democracy, which was supposed to embody the spirit of the conference, turned into nothing but a pathetic facade: a predetermined, formal vote, and an official blessing for what was arranged behind the scenes. What kind of reform begins by beautifying faces and ignores deep wounds? What kind of change buries pressing questions beneath the rubble of hollow slogans?
Last night, the Justice and Development Party demonstrated that it has learned nothing from its defeats; rather, it has solidified the belief that staying in the limelight, at any cost, is more important than rebuilding trust lost for years. What transpired was not merely a momentary deviation, but a natural culmination of a long path of gradual betrayal of the ideas it once claimed to defend.
After last night, the question is no longer when will the Justice and Development Party fall; instead, the real question is: how long will it take to officially bury this dead political body, which some opportunists still maneuver like a worn wooden puppet?
