Demirtas’ imprisonment advantage for HDP ahead of Turkey elections: Former MP

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Although their candidate for the Turkish presidency is currently in prison, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has turned this disadvantage into an advantage for the upcoming snap elections in June, a former member of the Turkish Parliament said.

Aykan Erdemir, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a former member of the Turkish Parliament, discussed the HDP’s chances in Turkey’s snap elections to be held on June 24.

Despite the pro-Kurdish party entering the polls at a disadvantage—with its former co-leader and candidate for the Turkish presidency Selahattin Demirtas behind bars—the HDP has turned his imprisonment into an advantage to gain more public support, Erdemir said.

“Demirtas has used media and social media very skillfully. He has turned his imprisonment into an emboldening kind of narrative, and I think the public has received this very well,” he told Kurdistan 24 on the sidelines of an event hosted earlier this month by the FDD about Turkey’s snap elections.

“Not only the electorate, but also other opposition candidates [have] used this opportunity to reach out to [Demirtas], and I think this is building new bridges between Turkey’s pro-Kurdish movement and other opposition parties,” Erdemir added.

He noted that a possible alliance between the HDP and opposition parties could harvest “an unexpected outcome for [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan who always counts on intra-opposition conflicts.”

The former Turkish politician admitted that Erdogan “always has the upper-hand” due to elections in Turkey being “no longer fair” and “semi-free,” but he described the formation of a four-party opposition bloc as “a ground-breaking move.”

Ahead of the June elections, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the IYI (Good) Party, the Felicity Party (SP), and the Democrat Party (DP) decided they would form a four-party bloc to contest Erdogan’s leading Justice and Development Party (AKP).

According to Erdemir, there is already talks of cooperation between the HDP and the four-party opposition bloc in the second round of presidential elections on July 8, which he said provides a problem for Erdogan who “could suddenly find himself in the loser’s seat.”

Indeed, the Turkish President has already anticipated this, Erdemir noted, when he said during one of his public addresses earlier this month that he would withdraw if the nation told him it was enough.

“Should my nation say ‘tamam,’ then [I] will step aside,” Erdogan said during a televised speech to his ruling AKP’s weekly parliamentary convention in Ankara on May 8.

Shortly after his remarks, “tamam,” which means “okay” or “enough” in Turkish, took social media platforms by storm with over half-a-million users hash-tagging the term to tell Erdogan “enough” of his now 15-year-long rule as the head of successive governments.

“I think Turkey is finally beginning to entertain the idea of a country without Erdogan’s rule,” Erdemir said.

He also explained that the Turkish President was riding a “nationalist rally around the Flag Affect,” especially following his army’s cross-border operation into Syrian Kurdistan’s Afrin region in January.

“Historically, Turkey’s cross-border operations have created a rally around the ‘Flag Affect’ and, therefore, strengthened the governments in power,” Erdemir stated. “We are also seeing the same thing here.”

“Although Erdogan’s approval ratings have been overall low, the support for the cross-border campaign into Syria has been practically high, and I think that also went into Erdogan’s calculation for the snap elections.”

However, the FDD Senior Fellow said a decline in the Turkish economy could “trump security concerns” and sway voters to “start caring more about their pockets than about national glory and military victory.”