Two opposition parties voted in favor, along with my party, the Republican People’s Party (known as the C.H.P.). But the deputies from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (known as the A.K.P.) all voted “no.” As I said three weeks ago: “Those who try to channel the hard work, struggle and labor of miners — who go down into the cold mines so that the world can have heat — into the short-term benefits of a political party ... will pay for this, sooner or later, before history and before the working class of Turkey.” And now, just weeks after the majority in Parliament blocked an investigation, our worst nightmare has come true.

Since the fire, I’ve been at the mine every day until the early hours of the morning. We are pained by the grief of having to recover the lifeless bodies of our friends and neighbors. In the streets of Soma, everyone is walking around with tears in their eyes. In the midst of this indescribable pain, we’re doing all we can to support the grieving families. Several people have now been arrested — but the problem goes beyond a few irresponsible supervisors and profit-driven mine owners.

In Turkey today, there is no real democracy and there is no accountability. Deputies from the ruling party can never make decisions on their own; they do what they are told by Mr. Erdogan and other leaders of their party. That’s because, according to the prime minister, the opposition is a menace to power, and whatever we propose should be rejected.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is the links between politicians and mine owners. The mines in Soma are a textbook case of cushy corporate-government ties, and that’s why the ruling party didn’t want an investigation. Before last week’s tragedy, it wasn’t politically smart for them to investigate accidents in which just a few people had died here and there. But now, the balance sheet is heavy with deaths; now Turkey and the whole world can read the contents of my defeated proposal; and now, ironically, even the A.K.P. has proposed a similar inquiry and has brought it to the floor in Parliament.

I and many fellow members of the opposition will vote in favor of their proposal because we want Soma to be investigated. We will not vote “no” just because the proposal was brought to the floor by the ruling party. We will act according to our consciences rather than political expediency.