BFF-06, 07 Erdogan, rivals woo Turkey’s crucial Kurdish vote

334

ZCZC

BFF-06

TURKEY-VOTE-KURDS

Erdogan, rivals woo Turkey’s crucial Kurdish vote

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Turkey’s Kurds are set to
play a critical role in determining the outcome of elections this month, with
their votes coveted not just by the main pro-Kurdish party but also President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his chief rival.

Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey, has turned into an
electoral battleground, even though the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party
(HDP) and its jailed presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas are sure to
leave rivals trailing.

Over the last week both Erdogan and his main challenger, Muharrem Ince of
the Republican People’s Party (CHP), have made trips to Diyarbakir to sway
the votes of a potentially sceptical electorate.

Kurds make up at least one fifth of Turkey’s 80 million population, by far
its largest ethnic minority. The Diyarbakir region is a stronghold of the
HDP, which in November 2015 parliamentary elections won over 71 percent of
the vote there and Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) just 22
percent.

Every Kurdish vote will count in the June 24 snap parliamentary and
presidential polls. But not all Kurds vote automatically for the HDP.

For the AKP to win an absolute majority in the next parliament will depend
largely on whether the HDP breaks through the 10 percent overall threshold
needed for seats. Although in the presidential race Demirtas will be the
favoured candidate of most Kurds, their votes will be crucial in helping Ince
if he succeeds in forcing Erdogan into a run-off.

The election is taking place against the background of ongoing troubles in
the Kurdish-dominated southeast, where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) has waged an insurgency since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands
of lives.

And Demirtas, by far the HDP’s most charismatic figure, is having to run
his campaign from behind bars after being jailed in November 2016 on charges
of links to the PKK.

– ‘At the expense of Kurds’ –

Analysts say that the AKP faces an even greater struggle than usual to win
Kurdish votes after allying itself with the right-wing Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP) which is despised by many Kurds.

MORE/FI/ 0852 hrs

ZCZC

BFF-07

TURKEY-VOTE-KURDS-2-LAST

“The AKP chose the MHP at the expense of the Kurds,” said Mehmet Vural,
president of the Dicle Social Research Centre.

“This has irritated the Kurds in general, not just the HDP supporters but
also those who vote AKP,” he added.

Many Kurds were also dismayed by Ankara’s bitter opposition to the
September 2017 independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the
Turkish military operation in the Afrin region of Syria earlier this year to
dislodge a Kurdish militia

At his rally in Diyarbakir on June 3, Erdogan told voters the area was
enjoying “peace like never in the last 40 years” and launched a lacerating
attack on the HDP, saying “we (the AKP) build but they destroy”.

Winning votes in Diyarbakir is even tougher for the CHP, which in the
November 2015 parliamentary polls took a mere two percent of the vote in the
area.

The party, which was set up by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, has historically shown little enthusiasm for the Kurdish cause.

But Ince, who held a rally in the city on June 11 in Station Square, the
identical spot to Erdogan, has made a clear effort to forge a rapprochement.

One of the first acts of his campaign was to visit Demirtas in jail, a move
that was roundly condemned by Erdogan.

– ‘We will be kingmakers’ –

Some commentators noted that the turnout at Ince’s Diyarbakir rally was
notably fuller than at the one for Erdogan, prompting the incumbent president
to snipe that those who showed up to hear Ince “were almost all HDP”.

“We are going to vote for Demirtas in the first round. And in the second
round we will vote for Ince and we will work with him,” said Diyarbakir
resident Mehmet Coban.

Filiz Buluttekin, co-head of the HDP’s branch in Diyarbakir, predicted the
party would win over former AKP voters as “Erdogan behaves like the enemy of
the Kurds”.

“If there is a run-off between Erdogan and Ince, we will be the
kingmakers,” she added.

Diyarbakir is not totally representative of the entire Kurdish vote, with
some Kurdish-populated regions like Adiyaman and Elazig opting for the AKP.

“The large (Kurdish) clans and Sunni religious orders… will probably
largely continue to support Erdogan and the AKP,” said Berkay Mandiraci,
Turkey analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“A small segment of mostly urban conservative Kurds” has been disillusioned
by the AKP-MHP alliance and Erdogan’s nationalism, he added.

BSS/AFP/FI/0854 hrs