PKK calls Turkey's election results 'illegitimate'

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An armed group that has led a decades-long insurgency against Ankara over Kurdish rights in Turkey has called the nation's recent elections "illegitimate."

In a strongly-worded statement sent to Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday, the Executive Council Co-Presidency of the KCK, the umbrella group to which the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) belongs, said, "Elections were held under the State of Emergency, in conditions of pressure and inequality, with much fraud."

"Forces of democracy must not consider these results legitimate, they must take a stance against this illegitimate fascist government and make their struggle permanent."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged victorious in Sunday’s twin snap presidential and parliamentary elections, taking home 52.5 percent of the votes in the presidential race, with over 99 percent of ballots counted. His Justice and Development Party (AKP), aligned with far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), received 42.5 percent of the popular vote.

Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas, who has been in jail for over 20 months, was forced to campaign from behind bars. The HDP is the target of an almost two-years-long ongoing crackdown that has seen the jailing of eight lawmakers, 80 mayors, and over 5,000 members over alleged ties to the PKK.

"The conditions the elections were held under, the pressure during the election process and interventions with the ballots illegitimize these elections," read the statement, echoing statements by other critics of Erdogan.

On Monday, the European Union refused to congratulate Erdogan on his elections victory, instead stating the conditions for the polls were “not equal.”

Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Nechirvan Barzani, however, congratulated him and the AKP on Tuesday.

The PKK statement continued, "The AKP-MHP alliance has lost societal support in Turkey. As such, when they understood that they would lose in the election, like all fascist governments they have chosen to rile up chauvinism."

"As they continue their aggression against the Kurdish people's struggle for freedom, they will increase oppression to make the forces of democracy and democrats in Turkey surrender," it read. "They will try to make the whole society and all the forces of democracy complicit in their policies of war. In this sense, they will launch a new period of oppression against forces of democracy."

"We as the Kurdish Freedom Movement will fight this fascist government that is against democracy and peoples everywhere," the statement said.

"This fascist government doesn't have long to live."